Clustering events based on extraction rules

ABSTRACT

Systems and methods include causing presentation of a first cluster in association with an event of the first cluster, the first cluster from a first set of clusters of events. Each event includes a time stamp and event data. Based on the presentation of the first cluster, an extraction rule corresponding to the event of the first cluster is received from a user. Similarities in the event data between the events are determined based on the received extraction rule. The events are grouped into a second set of clusters based on the determined similarities. Presentation is caused of a second cluster in association with an event of the second cluster, where the second cluster is from the second set of clusters.

BACKGROUND

Modern data centers often include thousands of hosts that operatecollectively to service requests from even larger numbers of remoteclients. During operation, components of these data centers can producesignificant volumes of machine-generated data. In order to reduce thesize of the data, it is typically pre-processed before it is stored. Insome instances, the pre-processing includes extracting and storing someof the data, but discarding the remainder of the data. Although this maysave storage space in the short term, it can be undesirable in the longterm. For example, if the discarded data is later determined to be ofuse, it may no longer be available.

In some instances, techniques have been developed to apply minimalprocessing to the data in an attempt to preserve more of the data forlater use. For example, the data may be maintained in a relativelyunstructured form to reduce the loss of relevant data. Unfortunately,the unstructured nature of much of this data has made it challenging toperform indexing and searching operations because of the difficulty ofapplying semantic meaning to unstructured data. As the number of hostsand clients associated with a data center continues to grow, processinglarge volumes of machine-generated data in an intelligent manner andeffectively presenting the results of such processing continues to be apriority. Moreover, processing of the data may return a large amount ofinformation that can be difficult for a user to interpret. For example,if a user submits a search of the data, the user may be provided with alarge set of search results for the data but may not know how the searchresults relate to the data itself or how the search results relate toone another. As a result, a user may have a difficult time decipheringwhat portions of the data or the search results are relevant to her/hisinquiry.

SUMMARY

Embodiments of the present invention are directed to clustering eventsbased on extraction rules. In various implementations, events areclustered, or grouped, at least partially based on extraction rulesassociated with the events. For example, the events can be clusteredbased on similarities identified by applying one or more extractionrules to event data. As additional extraction rules are received for theevents, the events can be reclustered based on the additional extractionrules.

In some respects, one or more of the extraction rules can be provided bya user, such as through an interactive field generator that presents atleast one of the clusters in association with at least one event. Theuser can select one or more portions of event data corresponding to thepresented cluster. The system uses the selected portions as sample datain order to generate an extraction rule. The extraction rule can be usedto recluster the events and at least one of the reclustered events arepresented in association with at least one event. This can be repeatedas the user continues generating, modifying, and/or removing extractionrules from the set of extraction rules applied to clustering. As the setchanges, the user can view the impact of these actions on the clusteringto better understand the coverage of the extraction rules on the eventdata.

This summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in asimplified form that are further described below in the detaileddescription. This summary is not intended to identify key features oressential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended tobe used in isolation as an aid in determining the scope of the claimedsubject matter.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Implementations of the present disclosure are described in detail belowwith reference to the attached drawing figures, wherein:

FIG. 1 illustrates a networked computer environment in which anembodiment may be implemented;

FIG. 2 illustrates a block diagram of an example data intake and querysystem in which an embodiment may be implemented;

FIG. 3 is a flow diagram that illustrates how indexers process, index,and store data received from forwarders in accordance with the disclosedembodiments;

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram that illustrates how a search head and indexersperform a search query in accordance with the disclosed embodiments;

FIG. 5 illustrates a scenario where a common customer ID is found amonglog data received from three disparate sources in accordance with thedisclosed embodiments;

FIG. 6A illustrates a search screen in accordance with the disclosedembodiments;

FIG. 6B illustrates a data summary dialog that enables a user to selectvarious data sources in accordance with the disclosed embodiments;

FIGS. 7A-7D illustrate a series of user interface screens for an exampledata model-driven report generation interface in accordance with thedisclosed embodiments;

FIG. 8 illustrates an example search query received from a client andexecuted by search peers in accordance with the disclosed embodiments;

FIG. 9A illustrates a key indicators view in accordance with thedisclosed embodiments;

FIG. 9B illustrates an incident review dashboard in accordance with thedisclosed embodiments;

FIG. 9C illustrates a proactive monitoring tree in accordance with thedisclosed embodiments;

FIG. 9D illustrates a user interface screen displaying both log data andperformance data in accordance with the disclosed embodiments;

FIG. 10 illustrates a block diagram of an example cloud-based dataintake and query system in which an embodiment may be implemented;

FIG. 11 illustrates a block diagram of an example data intake and querysystem that performs searches across external data systems in accordancewith the disclosed embodiments;

FIGS. 12-14 illustrate a series of user interface screens for an exampledata model-driven report generation interface in accordance with thedisclosed embodiments;

FIGS. 15-17 illustrate example visualizations generated by a reportingapplication in accordance with the disclosed embodiments;

FIG. 18A illustrates an example of a field generation interface inaccordance with the disclosed embodiments.

FIG. 18B illustrates an example of a field generation interface inaccordance with the disclosed embodiments.

FIG. 18C illustrates an example of a field generation interface inaccordance with the disclosed embodiments.

FIG. 18D illustrates an example of a field generation interface inaccordance with the disclosed embodiments.

FIG. 18E illustrates an example of a field generation interface inaccordance with the disclosed embodiments.

FIG. 18F illustrates an example of a field generation interface inaccordance with the disclosed embodiments.

FIG. 18G illustrates an example of a field generation interface inaccordance with the disclosed embodiments.

FIG. 19 presents a flowchart illustrating a method in accordance withthe disclosed embodiments.

FIG. 20 presents a flowchart illustrating a method in accordance withthe disclosed embodiments.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Embodiments are described herein according to the following outline:

-   -   1.0. General Overview    -   2.0. Operating Environment        -   2.1. Host Devices        -   2.2. Client Devices        -   2.3. Client Device Applications        -   2.4. Data Server System        -   2.5. Data Ingestion            -   2.5.1. Input            -   2.5.2. Parsing            -   2.5.3. Indexing        -   2.6. Query Processing        -   2.7. Field Extraction        -   2.8. Example Search Screen        -   2.9. Data Modelling        -   2.10. Acceleration Techniques            -   2.10.1. Aggregation Technique            -   2.10.2. Keyword Index            -   2.10.3. High Performance Analytics Store            -   2.10.4. Accelerating Report Generation        -   2.11. Security Features        -   2.12. Data Center Monitoring        -   2.13. Cloud-Based System Overview        -   2.14. Searching Externally Archived Data            -   2.14.1. ERP Process Features        -   2.15. IT Service Monitoring    -   3.0. Event Clustering        -   3.1. Event Clustering based on Extraction Rules        -   3.2. Types of Extraction Rules Applied to Clustering        -   3.3. Interactive Field Generator        -   3.4 Additional Implementations

1.0. GENERAL OVERVIEW

Modern data centers and other computing environments can compriseanywhere from a few host computer systems to thousands of systemsconfigured to process data, service requests from remote clients, andperform numerous other computational tasks. During operation, variouscomponents within these computing environments often generatesignificant volumes of machine-generated data. For example, machine datais generated by various components in the information technology (IT)environments, such as servers, sensors, routers, mobile devices,Internet of Things (IoT) devices, etc. Machine-generated data caninclude system logs, network packet data, sensor data, applicationprogram data, error logs, stack traces, system performance data, etc. Ingeneral, machine-generated data can also include performance data,diagnostic information, and many other types of data that can beanalyzed to diagnose performance problems, monitor user interactions,and to derive other insights.

A number of tools are available to analyze machine data, that is,machine-generated data. In order to reduce the size of the potentiallyvast amount of machine data that may be generated, many of these toolstypically pre-process the data based on anticipated data-analysis needs.For example, pre-specified data items may be extracted from the machinedata and stored in a database to facilitate efficient retrieval andanalysis of those data items at search time. However, the rest of themachine data typically is not saved and discarded during pre-processing.As storage capacity becomes progressively cheaper and more plentiful,there are fewer incentives to discard these portions of machine data andmany reasons to retain more of the data.

This plentiful storage capacity is presently making it feasible to storemassive quantities of minimally processed machine data for laterretrieval and analysis. In general, storing minimally processed machinedata and performing analysis operations at search time can providegreater flexibility because it enables an analyst to search all of themachine data, instead of searching only a pre-specified set of dataitems. This may enable an analyst to investigate different aspects ofthe machine data that previously were unavailable for analysis.

However, analyzing and searching massive quantities of machine datapresents a number of challenges. For example, a data center, servers, ornetwork appliances may generate many different types and formats ofmachine data (e.g., system logs, network packet data (e.g., wire data,etc.), sensor data, application program data, error logs, stack traces,system performance data, operating system data, virtualization data,etc.) from thousands of different components, which can collectively bevery time-consuming to analyze. In another example, mobile devices maygenerate large amounts of information relating to data accesses,application performance, operating system performance, networkperformance, etc. There can be millions of mobile devices that reportthese types of information.

These challenges can be addressed by using an event-based data intakeand query system, such as the SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE system developed bySplunk Inc. of San Francisco, Calif. The SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE system isthe leading platform for providing real-time operational intelligencethat enables organizations to collect, index, and searchmachine-generated data from various websites, applications, servers,networks, and mobile devices that power their businesses. The SPLUNK®ENTERPRISE system is particularly useful for analyzing data which iscommonly found in system log files, network data, and other data inputsources. Although many of the techniques described herein are explainedwith reference to a data intake and query system similar to the SPLUNK®ENTERPRISE system, these techniques are also applicable to other typesof data systems.

In the SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE system, machine-generated data are collectedand stored as “events”. An event comprises a portion of themachine-generated data and is associated with a specific point in time.For example, events may be derived from “time series data,” where thetime series data comprises a sequence of data points (e.g., performancemeasurements from a computer system, etc.) that are associated withsuccessive points in time. In general, each event can be associated witha timestamp that is derived from the raw data in the event, determinedthrough interpolation between temporally proximate events having knowntimestamps, or determined based on other configurable rules forassociating timestamps with events, etc.

In some instances, machine data can have a predefined format, where dataitems with specific data formats are stored at predefined locations inthe data. For example, the machine data may include data stored asfields in a database table. In other instances, machine data may nothave a predefined format, that is, the data is not at fixed, predefinedlocations, but the data does have repeatable patterns and is not random.This means that some machine data can comprise various data items ofdifferent data types and that may be stored at different locationswithin the data. For example, when the data source is an operatingsystem log, an event can include one or more lines from the operatingsystem log containing raw data that includes different types ofperformance and diagnostic information associated with a specific pointin time.

Examples of components which may generate machine data from which eventscan be derived include, but are not limited to, web servers, applicationservers, databases, firewalls, routers, operating systems, and softwareapplications that execute on computer systems, mobile devices, sensors,Internet of Things (IoT) devices, etc. The data generated by such datasources can include, for example and without limitation, server logfiles, activity log files, configuration files, messages, network packetdata, performance measurements, sensor measurements, etc.

The SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE system uses flexible schema to specify how toextract information from the event data. A flexible schema may bedeveloped and redefined as needed. Note that a flexible schema may beapplied to event data “on the fly,” when it is needed (e.g., at searchtime, index time, ingestion time, etc.). When the schema is not appliedto event data until search time it may be referred to as a “late-bindingschema.”

During operation, the SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE system starts with raw inputdata (e.g., one or more system logs, streams of network packet data,sensor data, application program data, error logs, stack traces, systemperformance data, etc.). The system divides this raw data into blocks(e.g., buckets of data, each associated with a specific time frame,etc.), and parses the raw data to produce timestamped events. The systemstores the timestamped events in a data store. The system enables usersto run queries against the stored data to, for example, retrieve eventsthat meet criteria specified in a query, such as containing certainkeywords or having specific values in defined fields. As used hereinthroughout, data that is part of an event is referred to as “eventdata”. In this context, the term “field” refers to a location in theevent data containing one or more values for a specific data item. Aswill be described in more detail herein, the fields are defined byextraction rules (e.g., regular expressions) that derive one or morevalues from the portion of raw machine data in each event that has aparticular field specified by an extraction rule. The set of values soproduced are semantically-related (such as IP address), even though theraw machine data in each event may be in different formats (e.g.,semantically-related values may be in different positions in the eventsderived from different sources).

As noted above, the SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE system utilizes a late-bindingschema to event data while performing queries on events. One aspect of alate-binding schema is applying “extraction rules” to event data toextract values for specific fields during search time. Morespecifically, the extraction rules for a field can include one or moreinstructions that specify how to extract a value for the field from theevent data. An extraction rule can generally include any type ofinstruction for extracting values from data in events. In some cases, anextraction rule comprises a regular expression where a sequence ofcharacters form a search pattern, in which case the rule is referred toas a “regex rule.” The system applies the regex rule to the event datato extract values for associated fields in the event data by searchingthe event data for the sequence of characters defined in the regex rule.

In the SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE system, a field extractor may be configured toautomatically generate extraction rules for certain field values in theevents when the events are being created, indexed, or stored, orpossibly at a later time. Alternatively, a user may manually defineextraction rules for fields using a variety of techniques. In contrastto a conventional schema for a database system, a late-binding schema isnot defined at data ingestion time. Instead, the late-binding schema canbe developed on an ongoing basis until the time a query is actuallyexecuted. This means that extraction rules for the fields in a query maybe provided in the query itself, or may be located during execution ofthe query. Hence, as a user learns more about the data in the events,the user can continue to refine the late-binding schema by adding newfields, deleting fields, or modifying the field extraction rules for usethe next time the schema is used by the system. Because the SPLUNK®ENTERPRISE system maintains the underlying raw data and useslate-binding schema for searching the raw data, it enables a user tocontinue to investigate and learn valuable insights about the raw data.

In some embodiments, a common field name may be used to reference two ormore fields containing equivalent data items, even though the fields maybe associated with different types of events that possibly havedifferent data formats and different extraction rules. By enabling acommon field name to be used to identify equivalent fields fromdifferent types of events generated by disparate data sources, thesystem facilitates use of a “common information model” (CIM) across thedisparate data sources (further discussed with respect to FIG. 5).

2.0. OPERATING ENVIRONMENT

FIG. 1 illustrates a networked computer system 100 in which anembodiment may be implemented. Those skilled in the art would understandthat FIG. 1 represents one example of a networked computer system andother embodiments may use different arrangements.

The networked computer system 100 comprises one or more computingdevices. These one or more computing devices comprise any combination ofhardware and software configured to implement the various logicalcomponents described herein. For example, the one or more computingdevices may include one or more memories that store instructions forimplementing the various components described herein, one or morehardware processors configured to execute the instructions stored in theone or more memories, and various data repositories in the one or morememories for storing data structures utilized and manipulated by thevarious components.

In an embodiment, one or more client devices 102 are coupled to one ormore host devices 106 and a data intake and query system 108 via one ormore networks 104. Networks 104 broadly represent one or more LANs,WANs, cellular networks (e.g., LTE, HSPA, 3G, and other cellulartechnologies), and/or networks using any of wired, wireless, terrestrialmicrowave, or satellite links, and may include the public Internet.

2.1. Host Devices

In the illustrated embodiment, a system 100 includes one or more hostdevices 106. Host devices 106 may broadly include any number ofcomputers, virtual machine instances, and/or data centers that areconfigured to host or execute one or more instances of host applications114. In general, a host device 106 may be involved, directly orindirectly, in processing requests received from client devices 102.Each host device 106 may comprise, for example, one or more of a networkdevice, a web server, an application server, a database server, etc. Acollection of host devices 106 may be configured to implement anetwork-based service. For example, a provider of a network-basedservice may configure one or more host devices 106 and host applications114 (e.g., one or more web servers, application servers, databaseservers, etc.) to collectively implement the network-based application.

In general, client devices 102 communicate with one or more hostapplications 114 to exchange information. The communication between aclient device 102 and a host application 114 may, for example, be basedon the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) or any other network protocol.Content delivered from the host application 114 to a client device 102may include, for example, HTML documents, media content, etc. Thecommunication between a client device 102 and host application 114 mayinclude sending various requests and receiving data packets. Forexample, in general, a client device 102 or application running on aclient device may initiate communication with a host application 114 bymaking a request for a specific resource (e.g., based on an HTTPrequest), and the application server may respond with the requestedcontent stored in one or more response packets.

In the illustrated embodiment, one or more of host applications 114 maygenerate various types of performance data during operation, includingevent logs, network data, sensor data, and other types ofmachine-generated data. For example, a host application 114 comprising aweb server may generate one or more web server logs in which details ofinteractions between the web server and any number of client devices 102is recorded. As another example, a host device 106 comprising a routermay generate one or more router logs that record information related tonetwork traffic managed by the router. As yet another example, a hostapplication 114 comprising a database server may generate one or morelogs that record information related to requests sent from other hostapplications 114 (e.g., web servers or application servers) for datamanaged by the database server.

2.2. Client Devices

Client devices 102 of FIG. 1 represent any computing device capable ofinteracting with one or more host devices 106 via a network 104.Examples of client devices 102 may include, without limitation, smartphones, tablet computers, handheld computers, wearable devices, laptopcomputers, desktop computers, servers, portable media players, gamingdevices, and so forth. In general, a client device 102 can provideaccess to different content, for instance, content provided by one ormore host devices 106, etc. Each client device 102 may comprise one ormore client applications 110, described in more detail in a separatesection hereinafter.

2.3. Client Device Applications

In an embodiment, each client device 102 may host or execute one or moreclient applications 110 that are capable of interacting with one or morehost devices 106 via one or more networks 104. For instance, a clientapplication 110 may be or comprise a web browser that a user may use tonavigate to one or more websites or other resources provided by one ormore host devices 106. As another example, a client application 110 maycomprise a mobile application or “app.” For example, an operator of anetwork-based service hosted by one or more host devices 106 may makeavailable one or more mobile apps that enable users of client devices102 to access various resources of the network-based service. As yetanother example, client applications 110 may include backgroundprocesses that perform various operations without direct interactionfrom a user. A client application 110 may include a “plug-in” or“extension” to another application, such as a web browser plug-in orextension.

In an embodiment, a client application 110 may include a monitoringcomponent 112. At a high level, the monitoring component 112 comprises asoftware component or other logic that facilitates generatingperformance data related to a client device's operating state, includingmonitoring network traffic sent and received from the client device andcollecting other device and/or application-specific information.Monitoring component 112 may be an integrated component of a clientapplication 110, a plug-in, an extension, or any other type of add-oncomponent. Monitoring component 112 may also be a stand-alone process.

In one embodiment, a monitoring component 112 may be created when aclient application 110 is developed, for example, by an applicationdeveloper using a software development kit (SDK). The SDK may includecustom monitoring code that can be incorporated into the codeimplementing a client application 110. When the code is converted to anexecutable application, the custom code implementing the monitoringfunctionality can become part of the application itself.

In some cases, an SDK or other code for implementing the monitoringfunctionality may be offered by a provider of a data intake and querysystem, such as a system 108. In such cases, the provider of the system108 can implement the custom code so that performance data generated bythe monitoring functionality is sent to the system 108 to facilitateanalysis of the performance data by a developer of the clientapplication or other users.

In an embodiment, the custom monitoring code may be incorporated intothe code of a client application 110 in a number of different ways, suchas the insertion of one or more lines in the client application codethat call or otherwise invoke the monitoring component 112. As such, adeveloper of a client application 110 can add one or more lines of codeinto the client application 110 to trigger the monitoring component 112at desired points during execution of the application. Code thattriggers the monitoring component may be referred to as a monitortrigger. For instance, a monitor trigger may be included at or near thebeginning of the executable code of the client application 110 such thatthe monitoring component 112 is initiated or triggered as theapplication is launched, or included at other points in the code thatcorrespond to various actions of the client application, such as sendinga network request or displaying a particular interface.

In an embodiment, the monitoring component 112 may monitor one or moreaspects of network traffic sent and/or received by a client application110. For example, the monitoring component 112 may be configured tomonitor data packets transmitted to and/or from one or more hostapplications 114. Incoming and/or outgoing data packets can be read orexamined to identify network data contained within the packets, forexample, and other aspects of data packets can be analyzed to determinea number of network performance statistics. Monitoring network trafficmay enable information to be gathered particular to the networkperformance associated with a client application 110 or set ofapplications.

In an embodiment, network performance data refers to any type of datathat indicates information about the network and/or network performance.Network performance data may include, for instance, a URL requested, aconnection type (e.g., HTTP, HTTPS, etc.), a connection start time, aconnection end time, an HTTP status code, request length, responselength, request headers, response headers, connection status (e.g.,completion, response time(s), failure, etc.), and the like. Uponobtaining network performance data indicating performance of thenetwork, the network performance data can be transmitted to a dataintake and query system 108 for analysis.

Upon developing a client application 110 that incorporates a monitoringcomponent 112, the client application 110 can be distributed to clientdevices 102. Applications generally can be distributed to client devices102 in any manner, or they can be pre-loaded. In some cases, theapplication may be distributed to a client device 102 via an applicationmarketplace or other application distribution system. For instance, anapplication marketplace or other application distribution system mightdistribute the application to a client device based on a request fromthe client device to download the application.

Examples of functionality that enables monitoring performance of aclient device are described in U.S. patent application Ser. No.14/524,748, entitled “UTILIZING PACKET HEADERS TO MONITOR NETWORKTRAFFIC IN ASSOCIATION WITH A CLIENT DEVICE”, filed on 27 Oct. 2014, andwhich is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety for allpurposes.

In an embodiment, the monitoring component 112 may also monitor andcollect performance data related to one or more aspects of theoperational state of a client application 110 and/or client device 102.For example, a monitoring component 112 may be configured to collectdevice performance information by monitoring one or more client deviceoperations, or by making calls to an operating system and/or one or moreother applications executing on a client device 102 for performanceinformation. Device performance information may include, for instance, acurrent wireless signal strength of the device, a current connectiontype and network carrier, current memory performance information, ageographic location of the device, a device orientation, and any otherinformation related to the operational state of the client device.

In an embodiment, the monitoring component 112 may also monitor andcollect other device profile information including, for example, a typeof client device, a manufacturer and model of the device, versions ofvarious software applications installed on the device, and so forth.

In general, a monitoring component 112 may be configured to generateperformance data in response to a monitor trigger in the code of aclient application 110 or other triggering application event, asdescribed above, and to store the performance data in one or more datarecords. Each data record, for example, may include a collection offield-value pairs, each field-value pair storing a particular item ofperformance data in association with a field for the item. For example,a data record generated by a monitoring component 112 may include a“networkLatency” field (not shown in the Figure) in which a value isstored. This field indicates a network latency measurement associatedwith one or more network requests. The data record may include a “state”field to store a value indicating a state of a network connection, andso forth for any number of aspects of collected performance data.

2.4. Data Server System

FIG. 2 depicts a block diagram of an exemplary data intake and querysystem 108, similar to the SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE system. System 108includes one or more forwarders 204 that receive data from a variety ofinput data sources 202, and one or more indexers 206 that process andstore the data in one or more data stores 208. These forwarders andindexers can comprise separate computer systems, or may alternativelycomprise separate processes executing on one or more computer systems.

Each data source 202 broadly represents a distinct source of data thatcan be consumed by a system 108. Examples of a data source 202 include,without limitation, data files, directories of files, data sent over anetwork, event logs, registries, etc.

During operation, the forwarders 204 identify which indexers 206 receivedata collected from a data source 202 and forward the data to theappropriate indexers. Forwarders 204 can also perform operations on thedata before forwarding, including removing extraneous data, detectingtimestamps in the data, parsing data, indexing data, routing data basedon criteria relating to the data being routed, and/or performing otherdata transformations.

In an embodiment, a forwarder 204 may comprise a service accessible toclient devices 102 and host devices 106 via a network 104. For example,one type of forwarder 204 may be capable of consuming vast amounts ofreal-time data from a potentially large number of client devices 102and/or host devices 106. The forwarder 204 may, for example, comprise acomputing device which implements multiple data pipelines or “queues” tohandle forwarding of network data to indexers 206. A forwarder 204 mayalso perform many of the functions that are performed by an indexer. Forexample, a forwarder 204 may perform keyword extractions on raw data orparse raw data to create events. A forwarder 204 may generate timestamps for events. Additionally or alternatively, a forwarder 204 mayperform routing of events to indexers. Data store 208 may contain eventsderived from machine data from a variety of sources all pertaining tothe same component in an IT environment, and this data may be producedby the machine in question or by other components in the IT environment.

2.5. Data Ingestion

FIG. 3 depicts a flow chart illustrating an example data flow performedby Data Intake and Query system 108, in accordance with the disclosedembodiments. The data flow illustrated in FIG. 3 is provided forillustrative purposes only; those skilled in the art would understandthat one or more of the steps of the processes illustrated in FIG. 3 maybe removed or the ordering of the steps may be changed. Furthermore, forthe purposes of illustrating a clear example, one or more particularsystem components are described in the context of performing variousoperations during each of the data flow stages. For example, a forwarderis described as receiving and processing data during an input phase; anindexer is described as parsing and indexing data during parsing andindexing phases; and a search head is described as performing a searchquery during a search phase. However, other system arrangements anddistributions of the processing steps across system components may beused.

2.5.1. Input

At block 302, a forwarder receives data from an input source, such as adata source 202 shown in FIG. 2. A forwarder initially may receive thedata as a raw data stream generated by the input source. For example, aforwarder may receive a data stream from a log file generated by anapplication server, from a stream of network data from a network device,or from any other source of data. In one embodiment, a forwarderreceives the raw data and may segment the data stream into “blocks,” or“buckets,” possibly of a uniform data size, to facilitate subsequentprocessing steps.

At block 304, a forwarder or other system component annotates each blockgenerated from the raw data with one or more metadata fields. Thesemetadata fields may, for example, provide information related to thedata block as a whole and may apply to each event that is subsequentlyderived from the data in the data block. For example, the metadatafields may include separate fields specifying each of a host, a source,and a source type related to the data block. A host field may contain avalue identifying a host name or IP address of a device that generatedthe data. A source field may contain a value identifying a source of thedata, such as a pathname of a file or a protocol and port related toreceived network data. A source type field may contain a valuespecifying a particular source type label for the data. Additionalmetadata fields may also be included during the input phase, such as acharacter encoding of the data, if known, and possibly other values thatprovide information relevant to later processing steps. In anembodiment, a forwarder forwards the annotated data blocks to anothersystem component (typically an indexer) for further processing.

The SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE system allows forwarding of data from one SPLUNK®ENTERPRISE instance to another, or even to a third-party system. SPLUNK®ENTERPRISE system can employ different types of forwarders in aconfiguration.

In an embodiment, a forwarder may contain the essential componentsneeded to forward data. It can gather data from a variety of inputs andforward the data to a SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE server for indexing andsearching. It also can tag metadata (e.g., source, source type, host,etc.).

Additionally or optionally, in an embodiment, a forwarder has thecapabilities of the aforementioned forwarder as well as additionalcapabilities. The forwarder can parse data before forwarding the data(e.g., associate a time stamp with a portion of data and create anevent, etc.) and can route data based on criteria such as source or typeof event. It can also index data locally while forwarding the data toanother indexer.

2.5.2. Parsing

At block 306, an indexer receives data blocks from a forwarder andparses the data to organize the data into events. In an embodiment, toorganize the data into events, an indexer may determine a source typeassociated with each data block (e.g., by extracting a source type labelfrom the metadata fields associated with the data block, etc.) and referto a source type configuration corresponding to the identified sourcetype. The source type definition may include one or more properties thatindicate to the indexer to automatically determine the boundaries ofevents within the data. In general, these properties may include regularexpression-based rules or delimiter rules where, for example, eventboundaries may be indicated by predefined characters or characterstrings. These predefined characters may include punctuation marks orother special characters including, for example, carriage returns, tabs,spaces, line breaks, etc. If a source type for the data is unknown tothe indexer, an indexer may infer a source type for the data byexamining the structure of the data. Then, it can apply an inferredsource type definition to the data to create the events.

At block 308, the indexer determines a timestamp for each event. Similarto the process for creating events, an indexer may again refer to asource type definition associated with the data to locate one or moreproperties that indicate instructions for determining a timestamp foreach event. The properties may, for example, instruct an indexer toextract a time value from a portion of data in the event, to interpolatetime values based on timestamps associated with temporally proximateevents, to create a timestamp based on a time the event data wasreceived or generated, to use the timestamp of a previous event, or useany other rules for determining timestamps.

At block 310, the indexer associates with each event one or moremetadata fields including a field containing the timestamp (in someembodiments, a timestamp may be included in the metadata fields)determined for the event. These metadata fields may include a number of“default fields” that are associated with all events, and may alsoinclude one more custom fields as defined by a user. Similar to themetadata fields associated with the data blocks at block 304, thedefault metadata fields associated with each event may include a host,source, and source type field including or in addition to a fieldstoring the timestamp.

At block 312, an indexer may optionally apply one or moretransformations to data included in the events created at block 306. Forexample, such transformations can include removing a portion of an event(e.g., a portion used to define event boundaries, extraneous charactersfrom the event, other extraneous text, etc.), masking a portion of anevent (e.g., masking a credit card number), removing redundant portionsof an event, etc. The transformations applied to event data may, forexample, be specified in one or more configuration files and referencedby one or more source type definitions.

2.5.3. Indexing

At blocks 314 and 316, an indexer can optionally generate a keywordindex to facilitate fast keyword searching for event data. To build akeyword index, at block 314, the indexer identifies a set of keywords ineach event. At block 316, the indexer includes the identified keywordsin an index, which associates each stored keyword with referencepointers to events containing that keyword (or to locations withinevents where that keyword is located, other location identifiers, etc.).When an indexer subsequently receives a keyword-based query, the indexercan access the keyword index to quickly identify events containing thekeyword.

In some embodiments, the keyword index may include entries forname-value pairs found in events, where a name-value pair can include apair of keywords connected by a symbol, such as an equals sign or colon.This way, events containing these name-value pairs can be quicklylocated. In some embodiments, fields can automatically be generated forsome or all of the name-value pairs at the time of indexing. Forexample, if the string “dest=10.0.1.2” is found in an event, a fieldnamed “dent” may be created for the event, and assigned a value of“10.0.1.2”.

At block 318, the indexer stores the events with an associated timestampin a data store 208. Timestamps enable a user to search for events basedon a time range. In one embodiment, the stored events are organized into“buckets,” where each bucket stores events associated with a specifictime range based on the timestamps associated with each event. This maynot only improve time-based searching, but also allows for events withrecent timestamps, which may have a higher likelihood of being accessed,to be stored in a faster memory to facilitate faster retrieval. Forexample, buckets containing the most recent events can be stored inflash memory rather than on a hard disk.

Each indexer 206 may be responsible for storing and searching a subsetof the events contained in a corresponding data store 208. Bydistributing events among the indexers and data stores, the indexers cananalyze events for a query in parallel. For example, using map-reducetechniques, each indexer returns partial responses for a subset ofevents to a search head that combines the results to produce an answerfor the query. By storing events in buckets for specific time ranges, anindexer may further optimize data retrieval process by searching bucketscorresponding to time ranges that are relevant to a query.

Moreover, events and buckets can also be replicated across differentindexers and data stores to facilitate high availability and disasterrecovery as described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/266,812,entitled BASED SEARCH AFFINITY″, filed on 30 Apr. 2014, and in U.S.patent application Ser. No. 14/266,817, entitled “MULTI-SITECLUSTERING”, also filed on 30 Apr. 2014, each of which is herebyincorporated by reference in its entirety for all purposes.

2.6. Query Processing

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram that illustrates an exemplary process that asearch head and one or more indexers may perform during a search query.At block 402, a search head receives a search query from a client. Atblock 404, the search head analyzes the search query to determine whatportion(s) of the query can be delegated to indexers and what portionsof the query can be executed locally by the search head. At block 406,the search head distributes the determined portions of the query to theappropriate indexers. In an embodiment, a search head cluster may takethe place of an independent search head where each search head in thesearch head cluster coordinates with peer search heads in the searchhead cluster to schedule jobs, replicate search results, updateconfigurations, fulfill search requests, etc. In an embodiment, thesearch head (or each search head) communicates with a master node (alsoknown as a cluster master, not shown in Fig.) that provides the searchhead with a list of indexers to which the search head can distribute thedetermined portions of the query. The master node maintains a list ofactive indexers and can also designate which indexers may haveresponsibility for responding to queries over certain sets of events. Asearch head may communicate with the master node before the search headdistributes queries to indexers to discover the addresses of activeindexers.

At block 408, the indexers to which the query was distributed, searchdata stores associated with them for events that are responsive to thequery. To determine which events are responsive to the query, theindexer searches for events that match the criteria specified in thequery. These criteria can include matching keywords or specific valuesfor certain fields. The searching operations at block 408 may use thelate-binding schema to extract values for specified fields from eventsat the time the query is processed. In an embodiment, one or more rulesfor extracting field values may be specified as part of a source typedefinition. The indexers may then either send the relevant events backto the search head, or use the events to determine a partial result, andsend the partial result back to the search head.

At block 410, the search head combines the partial results and/or eventsreceived from the indexers to produce a final result for the query. Thisfinal result may comprise different types of data depending on what thequery requested. For example, the results can include a listing ofmatching events returned by the query, or some type of visualization ofthe data from the returned events. In another example, the final resultcan include one or more calculated values derived from the matchingevents.

The results generated by the system 108 can be returned to a clientusing different techniques. For example, one technique streams resultsor relevant events back to a client in real-time as they are identified.Another technique waits to report the results to the client until acomplete set of results (which may include a set of relevant events or aresult based on relevant events) is ready to return to the client. Yetanother technique streams interim results or relevant events back to theclient in real-time until a complete set of results is ready, and thenreturns the complete set of results to the client. In another technique,certain results are stored as “search jobs” and the client may retrievethe results by referring the search jobs.

The search head can also perform various operations to make the searchmore efficient. For example, before the search head begins execution ofa query, the search head can determine a time range for the query and aset of common keywords that all matching events include. The search headmay then use these parameters to query the indexers to obtain a supersetof the eventual results. Then, during a filtering stage, the search headcan perform field-extraction operations on the superset to produce areduced set of search results. This speeds up queries that are performedon a periodic basis.

2.7. Field Extraction

The search head 210 allows users to search and visualize event dataextracted from raw machine data received from homogenous data sources.It also allows users to search and visualize event data extracted fromraw machine data received from heterogeneous data sources. The searchhead 210 includes various mechanisms, which may additionally reside inan indexer 206, for processing a query. Splunk Processing Language(SPL), used in conjunction with the SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE system, can beutilized to make a query. SPL is a pipelined search language in which aset of inputs is operated on by a first command in a command line, andthen a subsequent command following the pipe symbol “I” operates on theresults produced by the first command, and so on for additionalcommands. Other query languages, such as the Structured Query Language(“SQL”), can be used to create a query.

In response to receiving the search query, search head 210 usesextraction rules to extract values for the fields associated with afield or fields in the event data being searched. The search head 210obtains extraction rules that specify how to extract a value for certainfields from an event. Extraction rules can comprise regex rules thatspecify how to extract values for the relevant fields. In addition tospecifying how to extract field values, the extraction rules may alsoinclude instructions for deriving a field value by performing a functionon a character string or value retrieved by the extraction rule. Forexample, a transformation rule may truncate a character string, orconvert the character string into a different data format. In somecases, the query itself can specify one or more extraction rules.

The search head 210 can apply the extraction rules to event data that itreceives from indexers 206. Indexers 206 may apply the extraction rulesto events in an associated data store 208. Extraction rules can beapplied to all the events in a data store, or to a subset of the eventsthat have been filtered based on some criteria (e.g., event time stampvalues, etc.). Extraction rules can be used to extract one or morevalues for a field from events by parsing the event data and examiningthe event data for one or more patterns of characters, numbers,delimiters, etc., that indicate where the field begins and, optionally,ends.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example of raw machine data received fromdisparate data sources. In this example, a user submits an order formerchandise using a vendor's shopping application program 501 running onthe user's system. In this example, the order was not delivered to thevendor's server due to a resource exception at the destination serverthat is detected by the middleware code 502. The user then sends amessage to the customer support 503 to complain about the order failingto complete. The three systems 501, 502, and 503 are disparate systemsthat do not have a common logging format. The order application 501sends log data 504 to the SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE system in one format, themiddleware code 502 sends error log data 505 in a second format, and thesupport server 503 sends log data 506 in a third format.

Using the log data received at one or more indexers 206 from the threesystems the vendor can uniquely obtain an insight into user activity,user experience, and system behavior. The search head 210 allows thevendor's administrator to search the log data from the three systemsthat one or more indexers 206 are responsible for searching, therebyobtaining correlated information, such as the order number andcorresponding customer ID number of the person placing the order. Thesystem also allows the administrator to see a visualization of relatedevents via a user interface. The administrator can query the search head210 for customer ID field value matches across the log data from thethree systems that are stored at the one or more indexers 206. Thecustomer ID field value exists in the data gathered from the threesystems, but the customer ID field value may be located in differentareas of the data given differences in the architecture of thesystems—there is a semantic relationship between the customer ID fieldvalues generated by the three systems. The search head 210 requestsevent data from the one or more indexers 206 to gather relevant eventdata from the three systems. It then applies extraction rules to theevent data in order to extract field values that it can correlate. Thesearch head may apply a different extraction rule to each set of eventsfrom each system when the event data format differs among systems. Inthis example, the user interface can display to the administrator theevent data corresponding to the common customer ID field values 507,508, and 509, thereby providing the administrator with insight into acustomer's experience.

Note that query results can be returned to a client, a search head, orany other system component for further processing. In general, queryresults may include a set of one or more events, a set of one or morevalues obtained from the events, a subset of the values, statisticscalculated based on the values, a report containing the values, or avisualization, such as a graph or chart, generated from the values.

2.8. Example Search Screen

FIG. 6A illustrates an example search screen 600 in accordance with thedisclosed embodiments. Search screen 600 includes a search bar 602 thataccepts user input in the form of a search string. It also includes atime range picker 612 that enables the user to specify a time range forthe search. For “historical searches” the user can select a specifictime range, or alternatively a relative time range, such as “today,”“yesterday” or “last week.” For “real-time searches,” the user canselect the size of a preceding time window to search for real-timeevents. Search screen 600 also initially displays a “data summary”dialog as is illustrated in FIG. 6B that enables the user to selectdifferent sources for the event data, such as by selecting specifichosts and log files.

After the search is executed, the search screen 600 in FIG. 6A candisplay the results through search results tabs 604, wherein searchresults tabs 604 includes: an “events tab” that displays variousinformation about events returned by the search; a “statistics tab” thatdisplays statistics about the search results; and a “visualization tab”that displays various visualizations of the search results. The eventstab illustrated in FIG. 6A displays a timeline graph 605 thatgraphically illustrates the number of events that occurred in one-hourintervals over the selected time range. It also displays an events list608 that enables a user to view the raw data in each of the returnedevents. It additionally displays a fields sidebar 606 that includesstatistics about occurrences of specific fields in the returned events,including “selected fields” that are pre-selected by the user, and“interesting fields” that are automatically selected by the system basedon pre-specified criteria.

2.9. Data Models

A data model is a hierarchically structured search-time mapping ofsemantic knowledge about one or more datasets. It encodes the domainknowledge necessary to build a variety of specialized searches of thosedatasets. Those searches, in turn, can be used to generate reports.

A data model is composed of one or more “objects” (or “data modelobjects”) that define or otherwise correspond to a specific set of data.

Objects in data models can be arranged hierarchically in parent/childrelationships. Each child object represents a subset of the datasetcovered by its parent object. The top-level objects in data models arecollectively referred to as “root objects.”

Child objects have inheritance. Data model objects are defined bycharacteristics that mostly break down into constraints and attributes.Child objects inherit constraints and attributes from their parentobjects and have additional constraints and attributes of their own.Child objects provide a way of filtering events from parent objects.Because a child object always provides an additional constraint inaddition to the constraints it has inherited from its parent object, thedataset it represents is always a subset of the dataset that its parentrepresents.

For example, a first data model object may define a broad set of datapertaining to e-mail activity generally, and another data model objectmay define specific datasets within the broad dataset, such as a subsetof the e-mail data pertaining specifically to e-mails sent. Examples ofdata models can include electronic mail, authentication, databases,intrusion detection, malware, application state, alerts, computeinventory, network sessions, network traffic, performance, audits,updates, vulnerabilities, etc. Data models and their objects can bedesigned by knowledge managers in an organization, and they can enabledownstream users to quickly focus on a specific set of data. Forexample, a user can simply select an “e-mail activity” data model objectto access a dataset relating to e-mails generally (e.g., sent orreceived), or select an “e-mails sent” data model object (or datasub-model object) to access a dataset relating to e-mails sent.

A data model object may be defined by (1) a set of search constraints,and (2) a set of fields. Thus, a data model object can be used toquickly search data to identify a set of events and to identify a set offields to be associated with the set of events. For example, an “e-mailssent” data model object may specify a search for events relating toe-mails that have been sent, and specify a set of fields that areassociated with the events. Thus, a user can retrieve and use the“e-mails sent” data model object to quickly search source data forevents relating to sent e-mails, and may be provided with a listing ofthe set of fields relevant to the events in a user interface screen.

A child of the parent data model may be defined by a search (typically anarrower search) that produces a subset of the events that would beproduced by the parent data model's search. The child's set of fieldscan include a subset of the set of fields of the parent data modeland/or additional fields. Data model objects that reference the subsetscan be arranged in a hierarchical manner, so that child subsets ofevents are proper subsets of their parents. A user iteratively applies amodel development tool (not shown in Fig.) to prepare a query thatdefines a subset of events and assigns an object name to that subset. Achild subset is created by further limiting a query that generated aparent subset. A late-binding schema of field extraction rules isassociated with each object or subset in the data model.

Data definitions in associated schemas can be taken from the commoninformation model (CIM) or can be devised for a particular schema andoptionally added to the CIM. Child objects inherit fields from parentsand can include fields not present in parents. A model developer canselect fewer extraction rules than are available for the sourcesreturned by the query that defines events belonging to a model.Selecting a limited set of extraction rules can be a tool forsimplifying and focusing the data model, while allowing a userflexibility to explore the data subset. Development of a data model isfurther explained in U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,788,525 and 8,788,526, bothentitled “DATA MODEL FOR MACHINE DATA FOR SEMANTIC SEARCH”, both issuedon 22 Jul. 2014, U.S. Pat. No. 8,983,994, entitled “GENERATION OF A DATAMODEL FOR SEARCHING MACHINE DATA”, issued on 17 March, 2015, U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 14/611,232, entitled “GENERATION OF A DATA MODELAPPLIED TO QUERIES”, filed on 31 Jan. 2015, and U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 14/815,884, entitled “GENERATION OF A DATA MODEL APPLIED TOOBJECT QUERIES”, filed on 31 Jul. 2015, each of which is herebyincorporated by reference in its entirety for all purposes. See, also,Knowledge Manager Manual, Build a Data Model, Splunk Enterprise 6.1.3pp. 150-204 (Aug. 25, 2014).

A data model can also include reports. One or more report formats can beassociated with a particular data model and be made available to runagainst the data model. A user can use child objects to design reportswith object datasets that already have extraneous data pre-filtered out.In an embodiment, the data intake and query system 108 provides the userwith the ability to produce reports (e.g., a table, chart,visualization, etc.) without having to enter SPL, SQL, or other querylanguage terms into a search screen. Data models are used as the basisfor the search feature.

Data models may be selected in a report generation interface. The reportgenerator supports drag-and-drop organization of fields to be summarizedin a report. When a model is selected, the fields with availableextraction rules are made available for use in the report. The user mayrefine and/or filter search results to produce more precise reports. Theuser may select some fields for organizing the report and select otherfields for providing detail according to the report organization. Forexample, “region” and “salesperson” are fields used for organizing thereport and sales data can be summarized (subtotaled and totaled) withinthis organization. The report generator allows the user to specify oneor more fields within events and apply statistical analysis on valuesextracted from the specified one or more fields. The report generatormay aggregate search results across sets of events and generatestatistics based on aggregated search results. Building reports usingthe report generation interface is further explained in U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 14/503,335, entitled “GENERATING REPORTS FROMUNSTRUCTURED DATA”, filed on 30 Sep. 2014, and which is herebyincorporated by reference in its entirety for all purposes, and in PivotManual, Splunk Enterprise 6.1.3 (Aug. 4, 2014). Data visualizations alsocan be generated in a variety of formats, by reference to the datamodel. Reports, data visualizations, and data model objects can be savedand associated with the data model for future use. The data model objectmay be used to perform searches of other data.

FIGS. 12, 13, and 7A-7D illustrate a series of user interface screenswhere a user may select report generation options using data models. Thereport generation process may be driven by a predefined data modelobject, such as a data model object defined and/or saved via a reportingapplication or a data model object obtained from another source. A usercan load a saved data model object using a report editor. For example,the initial search query and fields used to drive the report editor maybe obtained from a data model object. The data model object that is usedto drive a report generation process may define a search and a set offields. Upon loading of the data model object, the report generationprocess may enable a user to use the fields (e.g., the fields defined bythe data model object) to define criteria for a report (e.g., filters,split rows/columns, aggregates, etc.) and the search may be used toidentify events (e.g., to identify events responsive to the search) usedto generate the report. That is, for example, if a data model object isselected to drive a report editor, the graphical user interface of thereport editor may enable a user to define reporting criteria for thereport using the fields associated with the selected data model object,and the events used to generate the report may be constrained to theevents that match, or otherwise satisfy, the search constraints of theselected data model object.

The selection of a data model object for use in driving a reportgeneration may be facilitated by a data model object selectioninterface. FIG. 12 illustrates an example interactive data modelselection graphical user interface 1200 of a report editor that displaysa listing of available data models 1201. The user may select one of thedata models 1202.

FIG. 13 illustrates an example data model object selection graphicaluser interface 1300 that displays available data objects 1301 for theselected data object model 1202. The user may select one of thedisplayed data model objects 1302 for use in driving the reportgeneration process.

Once a data model object is selected by the user, a user interfacescreen 700 shown in FIG. 7A may display an interactive listing ofautomatic field identification options 701 based on the selected datamodel object. For example, a user may select one of the threeillustrated options (e.g., the “All Fields” option 702, the “SelectedFields” option 703, or the “Coverage” option (e.g., fields with at leasta specified % of coverage) 704). If the user selects the “All Fields”option 702, all of the fields identified from the events that werereturned in response to an initial search query may be selected. Thatis, for example, all of the fields of the identified data model objectfields may be selected. If the user selects the “Selected Fields” option703, only the fields from the fields of the identified data model objectfields that are selected by the user may be used. If the user selectsthe “Coverage” option 704, only the fields of the identified data modelobject fields meeting a specified coverage criteria may be selected. Apercent coverage may refer to the percentage of events returned by theinitial search query that a given field appears in. Thus, for example,if an object dataset includes 10,000 events returned in response to aninitial search query, and the “avg_age” field appears in 854 of those10,000 events, then the “avg_age” field would have a coverage of 8.54%for that object dataset. If, for example, the user selects the“Coverage” option and specifies a coverage value of 2%, only fieldshaving a coverage value equal to or greater than 2% may be selected. Thenumber of fields corresponding to each selectable option may bedisplayed in association with each option. For example, “97” displayednext to the “All Fields” option 702 indicates that 97 fields will beselected if the “All Fields” option is selected. The “3” displayed nextto the “Selected Fields” option 703 indicates that 3 of the 97 fieldswill be selected if the “Selected Fields” option is selected. The “49”displayed next to the “Coverage” option 704 indicates that 49 of the 97fields (e.g., the 49 fields having a coverage of 2% or greater) will beselected if the “Coverage” option is selected. The number of fieldscorresponding to the “Coverage” option may be dynamically updated basedon the specified percent of coverage.

FIG. 7B illustrates an example graphical user interface screen (alsocalled the pivot interface) 705 displaying the reporting application's“Report Editor” page. The screen may display interactive elements fordefining various elements of a report. For example, the page includes a“Filters” element 706, a “Split Rows” element 707, a “Split Columns”element 708, and a “Column Values” element 709. The page may include alist of search results 711. In this example, the Split Rows element 707is expanded, revealing a listing of fields 710 that can be used todefine additional criteria (e.g., reporting criteria). The listing offields 710 may correspond to the selected fields (attributes). That is,the listing of fields 710 may list only the fields previously selected,either automatically and/or manually by a user. FIG. 7C illustrates aformatting dialogue 712 that may be displayed upon selecting a fieldfrom the listing of fields 710. The dialogue can be used to format thedisplay of the results of the selection (e.g., label the column to bedisplayed as “component”).

FIG. 7D illustrates an example graphical user interface screen 705including a table of results 713 based on the selected criteriaincluding splitting the rows by the “component” field. A column 714having an associated count for each component listed in the table may bedisplayed that indicates an aggregate count of the number of times thatthe particular field-value pair (e.g., the value in a row) occurs in theset of events responsive to the initial search query.

FIG. 14 illustrates an example graphical user interface screen 1400 thatallows the user to filter search results and to perform statisticalanalysis on values extracted from specific fields in the set of events.In this example, the top ten product names ranked by price are selectedas a filter 1401 that causes the display of the ten most popularproducts sorted by price. Each row is displayed by product name andprice 1402. This results in each product displayed in a column labeled“product name” along with an associated price in a column labeled“price” 1406. Statistical analysis of other fields in the eventsassociated with the ten most popular products have been specified ascolumn values 1403. A count of the number of successful purchases foreach product is displayed in column 1404. This statistics may beproduced by filtering the search results by the product name, findingall occurrences of a successful purchase in a field within the eventsand generating a total of the number of occurrences. A sum of the totalsales is displayed in column 1405, which is a result of themultiplication of the price and the number of successful purchases foreach product.

The reporting application allows the user to create graphicalvisualizations of the statistics generated for a report. For example,FIG. 15 illustrates an example graphical user interface 1500 thatdisplays a set of components and associated statistics 1501. Thereporting application allows the user to select a visualization of thestatistics in a graph (e.g., bar chart, scatter plot, area chart, linechart, pie chart, radial gauge, marker gauge, filler gauge, etc.). FIG.16 illustrates an example of a bar chart visualization 1600 of an aspectof the statistical data 1501. FIG. 17 illustrates a scatter plotvisualization 1700 of an aspect of the statistical data 1501.

2.10. Acceleration Technique

The above-described system provides significant flexibility by enablinga user to analyze massive quantities of minimally processed data “on thefly” at search time instead of storing pre-specified portions of thedata in a database at ingestion time. This flexibility enables a user tosee valuable insights, correlate data, and perform subsequent queries toexamine interesting aspects of the data that may not have been apparentat ingestion time.

However, performing extraction and analysis operations at search timecan involve a large amount of data and require a large number ofcomputational operations, which can cause delays in processing thequeries. Advantageously, SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE system employs a number ofunique acceleration techniques that have been developed to speed upanalysis operations performed at search time. These techniques include:(1) performing search operations in parallel across multiple indexers;(2) using a keyword index; (3) using a high performance analytics store;and (4) accelerating the process of generating reports. These noveltechniques are described in more detail below.

2.10.1. Aggregation Technique

To facilitate faster query processing, a query can be structured suchthat multiple indexers perform the query in parallel, while aggregationof search results from the multiple indexers is performed locally at thesearch head. For example, FIG. 8 illustrates how a search query 802received from a client at a search head 210 can split into two phases,including: (1) subtasks 804 (e.g., data retrieval or simple filtering)that may be performed in parallel by indexers 206 for execution, and (2)a search results aggregation operation 806 to be executed by the searchhead when the results are ultimately collected from the indexers.

During operation, upon receiving search query 802, a search head 210determines that a portion of the operations involved with the searchquery may be performed locally by the search head. The search headmodifies search query 802 by substituting “stats” (create aggregatestatistics over results sets received from the indexers at the searchhead) with “prestats” (create statistics by the indexer from localresults set) to produce search query 804, and then distributes searchquery 804 to distributed indexers, which are also referred to as “searchpeers.” Note that search queries may generally specify search criteriaor operations to be performed on events that meet the search criteria.Search queries may also specify field names, as well as search criteriafor the values in the fields or operations to be performed on the valuesin the fields. Moreover, the search head may distribute the full searchquery to the search peers as illustrated in FIG. 4, or may alternativelydistribute a modified version (e.g., a more restricted version) of thesearch query to the search peers. In this example, the indexers areresponsible for producing the results and sending them to the searchhead. After the indexers return the results to the search head, thesearch head aggregates the received results 806 to form a single searchresult set. By executing the query in this manner, the systemeffectively distributes the computational operations across the indexerswhile minimizing data transfers.

2.10.2. Keyword Index

As described above with reference to the flow charts in FIG. 3 and FIG.4, data intake and query system 108 can construct and maintain one ormore keyword indices to quickly identify events containing specifickeywords. This technique can greatly speed up the processing of queriesinvolving specific keywords. As mentioned above, to build a keywordindex, an indexer first identifies a set of keywords. Then, the indexerincludes the identified keywords in an index, which associates eachstored keyword with references to events containing that keyword, or tolocations within events where that keyword is located. When an indexersubsequently receives a keyword-based query, the indexer can access thekeyword index to quickly identify events containing the keyword.

2.10.3. High Performance Analytics Store

To speed up certain types of queries, some embodiments of system 108create a high performance analytics store, which is referred to as a“summarization table,” that contains entries for specific field-valuepairs. Each of these entries keeps track of instances of a specificvalue in a specific field in the event data and includes references toevents containing the specific value in the specific field. For example,an example entry in a summarization table can keep track of occurrencesof the value “94107” in a “ZIP code” field of a set of events and theentry includes references to all of the events that contain the value“94107” in the ZIP code field. This optimization technique enables thesystem to quickly process queries that seek to determine how many eventshave a particular value for a particular field. To this end, the systemcan examine the entry in the summarization table to count instances ofthe specific value in the field without having to go through theindividual events or perform data extractions at search time. Also, ifthe system needs to process all events that have a specific field-valuecombination, the system can use the references in the summarizationtable entry to directly access the events to extract further informationwithout having to search all of the events to find the specificfield-value combination at search time.

In some embodiments, the system maintains a separate summarization tablefor each of the above-described time-specific buckets that stores eventsfor a specific time range. A bucket-specific summarization tableincludes entries for specific field-value combinations that occur inevents in the specific bucket. Alternatively, the system can maintain aseparate summarization table for each indexer. The indexer-specificsummarization table includes entries for the events in a data store thatare managed by the specific indexer. Indexer-specific summarizationtables may also be bucket-specific.

The summarization table can be populated by running a periodic querythat scans a set of events to find instances of a specific field-valuecombination, or alternatively instances of all field-value combinationsfor a specific field. A periodic query can be initiated by a user, orcan be scheduled to occur automatically at specific time intervals. Aperiodic query can also be automatically launched in response to a querythat asks for a specific field-value combination.

In some cases, when the summarization tables may not cover all of theevents that are relevant to a query, the system can use thesummarization tables to obtain partial results for the events that arecovered by summarization tables, but may also have to search throughother events that are not covered by the summarization tables to produceadditional results. These additional results can then be combined withthe partial results to produce a final set of results for the query. Thesummarization table and associated techniques are described in moredetail in U.S. Pat. No. 8,682,925, entitled “DISTRIBUTED HIGHPERFORMANCE ANALYTICS STORE”, issued on 25 Mar. 2014, U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 14/170,159, entitled “SUPPLEMENTING A HIGHPERFORMANCE ANALYTICS STORE WITH EVALUATION OF INDIVIDUAL EVENTS TORESPOND TO AN EVENT QUERY”, filed on 31 Jan. 2014, and U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 14/815,973, entitled “STORAGE MEDIUM AND CONTROLDEVICE”, filed on 21 Feb. 2014, each of which is hereby incorporated byreference in its entirety.

2.10.4. Accelerating Report Generation

In some embodiments, a data server system such as the SPLUNK® ENTERPRISEsystem can accelerate the process of periodically generating updatedreports based on query results. To accelerate this process, asummarization engine automatically examines the query to determinewhether generation of updated reports can be accelerated by creatingintermediate summaries. If reports can be accelerated, the summarizationengine periodically generates a summary covering data obtained during alatest non-overlapping time period. For example, where the query seeksevents meeting a specified criteria, a summary for the time periodincludes only events within the time period that meet the specifiedcriteria. Similarly, if the query seeks statistics calculated from theevents, such as the number of events that match the specified criteria,then the summary for the time period includes the number of events inthe period that match the specified criteria.

In addition to the creation of the summaries, the summarization engineschedules the periodic updating of the report associated with the query.During each scheduled report update, the query engine determines whetherintermediate summaries have been generated covering portions of the timeperiod covered by the report update. If so, then the report is generatedbased on the information contained in the summaries. Also, if additionalevent data has been received and has not yet been summarized, and isrequired to generate the complete report, the query can be run on thisadditional event data. Then, the results returned by this query on theadditional event data, along with the partial results obtained from theintermediate summaries, can be combined to generate the updated report.This process is repeated each time the report is updated. Alternatively,if the system stores events in buckets covering specific time ranges,then the summaries can be generated on a bucket-by-bucket basis. Notethat producing intermediate summaries can save the work involved inre-running the query for previous time periods, so advantageosly onlythe newer event data needs to be processed while generating an updatedreport. These report acceleration techniques are described in moredetail in U.S. Pat. No. 8,589,403, entitled “COMPRESSED JOURNALING INEVENT TRACKING FILES FOR METADATA RECOVERY AND REPLICATION”, issued on19 Nov. 2013, U.S. Pat. No. 8,412,696, entitled “REAL TIME SEARCHING ANDREPORTING”, issued on 2 Apr. 2011, and U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,589,375 and8,589,432, both also entitled “REAL TIME SEARCHING AND REPORTING”, bothissued on 19 Nov. 2013, each of which is hereby incorporated byreference in its entirety.

2.11. Security Features

The SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE platform provides various schemas, dashboards andvisualizations that simplify developers' task to create applicationswith additional capabilities. One such application is the SPLUNK® APPFOR ENTERPRISE SECURITY, which performs monitoring and alertingoperations and includes analytics to facilitate identifying both knownand unknown security threats based on large volumes of data stored bythe SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE system. SPLUNK® APP FOR ENTERPRISE SECURITYprovides the security practitioner with visibility intosecurity-relevant threats found in the enterprise infrastructure bycapturing, monitoring, and reporting on data from enterprise securitydevices, systems, and applications. Through the use of SPLUNK®ENTERPRISE searching and reporting capabilities, SPLUNK® APP FORENTERPRISE SECURITY provides a top-down and bottom-up view of anorganization's security posture.

The SPLUNK® APP FOR ENTERPRISE SECURITY leverages SPLUNK® ENTERPRISEsearch-time normalization techniques, saved searches, and correlationsearches to provide visibility into security-relevant threats andactivity and generate notable events for tracking. The App enables thesecurity practitioner to investigate and explore the data to find new orunknown threats that do not follow signature-based patterns.

Conventional Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systemsthat lack the infrastructure to effectively store and analyze largevolumes of security-related data. Traditional SIEM systems typically usefixed schemas to extract data from pre-defined security-related fieldsat data ingestion time and storing the extracted data in a relationaldatabase. This traditional data extraction process (and associatedreduction in data size) that occurs at data ingestion time inevitablyhampers future incident investigations that may need original data todetermine the root cause of a security issue, or to detect the onset ofan impending security threat.

In contrast, the SPLUNK® APP FOR ENTERPRISE SECURITY system stores largevolumes of minimally processed security-related data at ingestion timefor later retrieval and analysis at search time when a live securitythreat is being investigated. To facilitate this data retrieval process,the SPLUNK® APP FOR ENTERPRISE SECURITY provides pre-specified schemasfor extracting relevant values from the different types ofsecurity-related event data and enables a user to define such schemas.

The SPLUNK® APP FOR ENTERPRISE SECURITY can process many types ofsecurity-related information. In general, this security-relatedinformation can include any information that can be used to identifysecurity threats. For example, the security-related information caninclude network-related information, such as IP addresses, domain names,asset identifiers, network traffic volume, uniform resource locatorstrings, and source addresses. The process of detecting security threatsfor network-related information is further described in U.S. Pat. No.8,826,434, entitled “SECURITY THREAT DETECTION BASED ON INDICATIONS INBIG DATA OF ACCESS TO NEWLY REGISTERED DOMAINS”, issued on 2 Sep. 2014,U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/956,252, entitled “INVESTIGATIVE ANDDYNAMIC DETECTION OF POTENTIAL SECURITY-THREAT INDICATORS FROM EVENTS INBIG DATA”, filed on 31 Jul. 2013, U.S. patent application Ser. No.14/445,018, entitled “GRAPHIC DISPLAY OF SECURITY THREATS BASED ONINDICATIONS OF ACCESS TO NEWLY REGISTERED DOMAINS”, filed on 28 Jul.2014, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/445,023, entitled “SECURITYTHREAT DETECTION OF NEWLY REGISTERED DOMAINS”, filed on 28 Jul. 2014,U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/815,971, entitled “SECURITY THREATDETECTION USING DOMAIN NAME ACCESSES”, filed on 1 Aug. 2015, and U.S.patent application Ser. No. 14/815,972, entitled “SECURITY THREATDETECTION USING DOMAIN NAME REGISTRATIONS”, filed on 1 Aug. 2015, eachof which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety for allpurposes. Security-related information can also include malwareinfection data and system configuration information, as well as accesscontrol information, such as login/logout information and access failurenotifications. The security-related information can originate fromvarious sources within a data center, such as hosts, virtual machines,storage devices and sensors. The security-related information can alsooriginate from various sources in a network, such as routers, switches,email servers, proxy servers, gateways, firewalls andintrusion-detection systems.

During operation, the SPLUNK® APP FOR ENTERPRISE SECURITY facilitatesdetecting “notable events” that are likely to indicate a securitythreat. These notable events can be detected in a number of ways: (1) auser can notice a correlation in the data and can manually identify acorresponding group of one or more events as “notable;” or (2) a usercan define a “correlation search” specifying criteria for a notableevent, and every time one or more events satisfy the criteria, theapplication can indicate that the one or more events are notable. A usercan alternatively select a pre-defined correlation search provided bythe application. Note that correlation searches can be run continuouslyor at regular intervals (e.g., every hour) to search for notable events.Upon detection, notable events can be stored in a dedicated “notableevents index,” which can be subsequently accessed to generate variousvisualizations containing security-related information. Also, alerts canbe generated to notify system operators when important notable eventsare discovered.

The SPLUNK® APP FOR ENTERPRISE SECURITY provides various visualizationsto aid in discovering security threats, such as a “key indicators view”that enables a user to view security metrics, such as counts ofdifferent types of notable events. For example, FIG. 9A illustrates anexample key indicators view 900 that comprises a dashboard, which candisplay a value 901, for various security-related metrics, such asmalware infections 902. It can also display a change in a metric value903, which indicates that the number of malware infections increased by63 during the preceding interval. Key indicators view 900 additionallydisplays a histogram panel 904 that displays a histogram of notableevents organized by urgency values, and a histogram of notable eventsorganized by time intervals. This key indicators view is described infurther detail in pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/956,338,entitled “KEY INDICATORS VIEW”, filed on 31 Jul. 2013, and which ishereby incorporated by reference in its entirety for all purposes.

These visualizations can also include an “incident review dashboard”that enables a user to view and act on “notable events.” These notableevents can include: (1) a single event of high importance, such as anyactivity from a known web attacker; or (2) multiple events thatcollectively warrant review, such as a large number of authenticationfailures on a host followed by a successful authentication. For example,FIG. 9B illustrates an example incident review dashboard 910 thatincludes a set of incident attribute fields 911 that, for example,enables a user to specify a time range field 912 for the displayedevents. It also includes a timeline 913 that graphically illustrates thenumber of incidents that occurred in time intervals over the selectedtime range. It additionally displays an events list 914 that enables auser to view a list of all of the notable events that match the criteriain the incident attributes fields 911. To facilitate identifyingpatterns among the notable events, each notable event can be associatedwith an urgency value (e.g., low, medium, high, critical), which isindicated in the incident review dashboard. The urgency value for adetected event can be determined based on the severity of the event andthe priority of the system component associated with the event.

2.12. Data Center Monitoring

As mentioned above, the SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE platform provides variousfeatures that simplify the developer's task to create variousapplications. One such application is SPLUNK® APP FOR VMWARE® thatprovides operational visibility into granular performance metrics, logs,tasks and events, and topology from hosts, virtual machines and virtualcenters. It empowers administrators with an accurate real-time pictureof the health of the environment, proactively identifying performanceand capacity bottlenecks.

Conventional data-center-monitoring systems lack the infrastructure toeffectively store and analyze large volumes of machine-generated data,such as performance information and log data obtained from the datacenter. In conventional data-center-monitoring systems,machine-generated data is typically pre-processed prior to being stored,for example, by extracting pre-specified data items and storing them ina database to facilitate subsequent retrieval and analysis at searchtime. However, the rest of the data is not saved and discarded duringpre-processing.

In contrast, the SPLUNK® APP FOR VMWARE® stores large volumes ofminimally processed machine data, such as performance information andlog data, at ingestion time for later retrieval and analysis at searchtime when a live performance issue is being investigated. In addition todata obtained from various log files, this performance-relatedinformation can include values for performance metrics obtained throughan application programming interface (API) provided as part of thevSphere Hypervisor™ system distributed by VMware, Inc. of Palo Alto,Calif. For example, these performance metrics can include: (1)CPU-related performance metrics; (2) disk-related performance metrics;(3) memory-related performance metrics; (4) network-related performancemetrics; (5) energy-usage statistics; (6) data-traffic-relatedperformance metrics; (7) overall system availability performancemetrics; (8) cluster-related performance metrics; and (9) virtualmachine performance statistics. Such performance metrics are describedin U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/167,316, entitled “CORRELATIONFOR USER-SELECTED TIME RANGES OF VALUES FOR PERFORMANCE METRICS OFCOMPONENTS IN AN INFORMATION-TECHNOLOGY ENVIRONMENT WITH LOG DATA FROMTHAT INFORMATION-TECHNOLOGY ENVIRONMENT”, filed on 29 Jan. 2014, andwhich is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety for allpurposes.

To facilitate retrieving information of interest from performance dataand log files, the SPLUNK® APP FOR VMWARE® provides pre-specifiedschemas for extracting relevant values from different types ofperformance-related event data, and also enables a user to define suchschemas.

The SPLUNK® APP FOR VMWARE® additionally provides various visualizationsto facilitate detecting and diagnosing the root cause of performanceproblems. For example, one such visualization is a “proactive monitoringtree” that enables a user to easily view and understand relationshipsamong various factors that affect the performance of a hierarchicallystructured computing system. This proactive monitoring tree enables auser to easily navigate the hierarchy by selectively expanding nodesrepresenting various entities (e.g., virtual centers or computingclusters) to view performance information for lower-level nodesassociated with lower-level entities (e.g., virtual machines or hostsystems). Example node-expansion operations are illustrated in FIG. 9C,wherein nodes 933 and 934 are selectively expanded. Note that nodes931-939 can be displayed using different patterns or colors to representdifferent performance states, such as a critical state, a warning state,a normal state or an unknown/offline state. The ease of navigationprovided by selective expansion in combination with the associatedperformance-state information enables a user to quickly diagnose theroot cause of a performance problem. The proactive monitoring tree isdescribed in further detail in U.S. patent application Ser. No.14/253,490, entitled “PROACTIVE MONITORING TREE WITH SEVERITY STATESORTING”, filed on 15 Apr. 2014, and U.S. patent application Ser. No.14/812,948, also entitled “PROACTIVE MONITORING TREE WITH SEVERITY STATESORTING”, filed on 29 Jul. 2015, each of which is hereby incorporated byreference in its entirety for all purposes.

The SPLUNK® APP FOR VMWARE® also provides a user interface that enablesa user to select a specific time range and then view heterogeneous datacomprising events, log data, and associated performance metrics for theselected time range. For example, the screen illustrated in FIG. 9Ddisplays a listing of recent “tasks and events” and a listing of recent“log entries” for a selected time range above a performance-metric graphfor “average CPU core utilization” for the selected time range. Notethat a user is able to operate pull-down menus 942 to selectivelydisplay different performance metric graphs for the selected time range.This enables the user to correlate trends in the performance-metricgraph with corresponding event and log data to quickly determine theroot cause of a performance problem. This user interface is described inmore detail in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/167,316, entitled“CORRELATION FOR USER-SELECTED TIME RANGES OF VALUES FOR PERFORMANCEMETRICS OF COMPONENTS IN AN INFORMATION-TECHNOLOGY ENVIRONMENT WITH LOGDATA FROM THAT INFORMATION-TECHNOLOGY ENVIRONMENT”, filed on 29 Jan.2014, and which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety forall purposes.

2.13. Cloud-Based System Overview

The example data intake and query system 108 described in reference toFIG. 2 comprises several system components, including one or moreforwarders, indexers, and search heads. In some environments, a user ofa data intake and query system 108 may install and configure, oncomputing devices owned and operated by the user, one or more softwareapplications that implement some or all of these system components. Forexample, a user may install a software application on server computersowned by the user and configure each server to operate as one or more ofa forwarder, an indexer, a search head, etc. This arrangement generallymay be referred to as an “on-premises” solution. That is, the system 108is installed and operates on computing devices directly controlled bythe user of the system. Some users may prefer an on-premises solutionbecause it may provide a greater level of control over the configurationof certain aspects of the system (e.g., security, privacy, standards,controls, etc.). However, other users may instead prefer an arrangementin which the user is not directly responsible for providing and managingthe computing devices upon which various components of system 108operate.

In one embodiment, to provide an alternative to an entirely on-premisesenvironment for system 108, one or more of the components of a dataintake and query system instead may be provided as a cloud-basedservice. In this context, a cloud-based service refers to a servicehosted by one more computing resources that are accessible to end usersover a network, for example, by using a web browser or other applicationon a client device to interface with the remote computing resources. Forexample, a service provider may provide a cloud-based data intake andquery system by managing computing resources configured to implementvarious aspects of the system (e.g., forwarders, indexers, search heads,etc.) and by providing access to the system to end users via a network.Typically, a user may pay a subscription or other fee to use such aservice. Each subscribing user of the cloud-based service may beprovided with an account that enables the user to configure a customizedcloud-based system based on the user's preferences.

FIG. 10 illustrates a block diagram of an example cloud-based dataintake and query system. Similar to the system of FIG. 2, the networkedcomputer system 1000 includes input data sources 202 and forwarders 204.These input data sources and forwarders may be in a subscriber's privatecomputing environment. Alternatively, they might be directly managed bythe service provider as part of the cloud service. In the example system1000, one or more forwarders 204 and client devices 1002 are coupled toa cloud-based data intake and query system 1006 via one or more networks1004. Network 1004 broadly represents one or more LANs, WANs, cellularnetworks, intranetworks, internetworks, etc., using any of wired,wireless, terrestrial microwave, satellite links, etc., and may includethe public Internet, and is used by client devices 1002 and forwarders204 to access the system 1006. Similar to the system of 108, each of theforwarders 204 may be configured to receive data from an input sourceand to forward the data to other components of the system 1006 forfurther processing.

In an embodiment, a cloud-based data intake and query system 1006 maycomprise a plurality of system instances 1008. In general, each systeminstance 1008 may include one or more computing resources managed by aprovider of the cloud-based system 1006 made available to a particularsubscriber. The computing resources comprising a system instance 1008may, for example, include one or more servers or other devicesconfigured to implement one or more forwarders, indexers, search heads,and other components of a data intake and query system, similar tosystem 108. As indicated above, a subscriber may use a web browser orother application of a client device 1002 to access a web portal orother interface that enables the subscriber to configure an instance1008.

Providing a data intake and query system as described in reference tosystem 108 as a cloud-based service presents a number of challenges.Each of the components of a system 108 (e.g., forwarders, indexers andsearch heads) may at times refer to various configuration files storedlocally at each component. These configuration files typically mayinvolve some level of user configuration to accommodate particular typesof data a user desires to analyze and to account for other userpreferences. However, in a cloud-based service context, users typicallymay not have direct access to the underlying computing resourcesimplementing the various system components (e.g., the computingresources comprising each system instance 1008) and may desire to makesuch configurations indirectly, for example, using one or more web-basedinterfaces. Thus, the techniques and systems described herein forproviding user interfaces that enable a user to configure source typedefinitions are applicable to both on-premises and cloud-based servicecontexts, or some combination thereof (e.g., a hybrid system where bothan on-premises environment such as SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE and a cloud-basedenvironment such as SPLUNK CLOUD™ are centrally visible).

2.14. Searching Externally Archived Data

FIG. 11 shows a block diagram of an example of a data intake and querysystem 108 that provides transparent search facilities for data systemsthat are external to the data intake and query system. Such facilitiesare available in the HUNK® system provided by Splunk Inc. of SanFrancisco, Calif. HUNK® represents an analytics platform that enablesbusiness and IT teams to rapidly explore, analyze, and visualize data inHadoop and NoSQL data stores.

The search head 210 of the data intake and query system receives searchrequests from one or more client devices 1104 over network connections1120. As discussed above, the data intake and query system 108 mayreside in an enterprise location, in the cloud, etc. FIG. 11 illustratesthat multiple client devices 1104 a, 1104 b, . . . , 1104 n maycommunicate with the data intake and query system 108. The clientdevices 1104 may communicate with the data intake and query system usinga variety of connections. For example, one client device in FIG. 11 isillustrated as communicating over an Internet (Web) protocol, anotherclient device is illustrated as communicating via a command lineinterface, and another client device is illustrated as communicating viaa system developer kit (SDK).

The search head 210 analyzes the received search request to identifyrequest parameters. If a search request received from one of the clientdevices 1104 references an index maintained by the data intake and querysystem, then the search head 210 connects to one or more indexers 206 ofthe data intake and query system for the index referenced in the requestparameters. That is, if the request parameters of the search requestreference an index, then the search head accesses the data in the indexvia the indexer. The data intake and query system 108 may include one ormore indexers 206, depending on system access resources andrequirements. As described further below, the indexers 206 retrieve datafrom their respective local data stores 208 as specified in the searchrequest. The indexers and their respective data stores can comprise oneor more storage devices and typically reside on the same system, thoughthey may be connected via a local network connection.

If the request parameters of the received search request reference anexternal data collection, which is not accessible to the indexers 206 orunder the management of the data intake and query system, then thesearch head 210 can access the external data collection through anExternal Result Provider (ERP) process 1110. An external data collectionmay be referred to as a “virtual index” (plural, “virtual indices”). AnERP process provides an interface through which the search head 210 mayaccess virtual indices.

Thus, a search reference to an index of the system relates to a locallystored and managed data collection. In contrast, a search reference to avirtual index relates to an externally stored and managed datacollection, which the search head may access through one or more ERPprocesses 1110, 1112. FIG. 11 shows two ERP processes 1110, 1112 thatconnect to respective remote (external) virtual indices, which areindicated as a Hadoop or another system 1114 (e.g., Amazon S3, AmazonEMR, other Hadoop Compatible File Systems (HCFS), etc.) and a relationaldatabase management system (RDBMS) 1116. Other virtual indices mayinclude other file organizations and protocols, such as Structured QueryLanguage (SQL) and the like. The ellipses between the ERP processes1110, 1112 indicate optional additional ERP processes of the data intakeand query system 108. An ERP process may be a computer process that isinitiated or spawned by the search head 210 and is executed by thesearch data intake and query system 108. Alternatively or additionally,an ERP process may be a process spawned by the search head 210 on thesame or different host system as the search head 210 resides.

The search head 210 may spawn a single ERP process in response tomultiple virtual indices referenced in a search request, or the searchhead may spawn different ERP processes for different virtual indices.Generally, virtual indices that share common data configurations orprotocols may share ERP processes. For example, all search queryreferences to a Hadoop file system may be processed by the same ERPprocess, if the ERP process is suitably configured. Likewise, all searchquery references to an SQL database may be processed by the same ERPprocess. In addition, the search head may provide a common ERP processfor common external data source types (e.g., a common vendor may utilizea common ERP process, even if the vendor includes different data storagesystem types, such as Hadoop and SQL). Common indexing schemes also maybe handled by common ERP processes, such as flat text files or Weblogfiles.

The search head 210 determines the number of ERP processes to beinitiated via the use of configuration parameters that are included in asearch request message. Generally, there is a one-to-many relationshipbetween an external results provider “family” and ERP processes. Thereis also a one-to-many relationship between an ERP process andcorresponding virtual indices that are referred to in a search request.For example, using RDBMS, assume two independent instances of such asystem by one vendor, such as one RDBMS for production and another RDBMSused for development. In such a situation, it is likely preferable (butoptional) to use two ERP processes to maintain the independent operationas between production and development data. Both of the ERPs, however,will belong to the same family, because the two RDBMS system types arefrom the same vendor.

The ERP processes 1110, 1112 receive a search request from the searchhead 210. The search head may optimize the received search request forexecution at the respective external virtual index. Alternatively, theERP process may receive a search request as a result of analysisperformed by the search head or by a different system process. The ERPprocesses 1110, 1112 can communicate with the search head 210 viaconventional input/output routines (e.g., standard in/standard out,etc.). In this way, the ERP process receives the search request from aclient device such that the search request may be efficiently executedat the corresponding external virtual index.

The ERP processes 1110, 1112 may be implemented as a process of the dataintake and query system. Each ERP process may be provided by the dataintake and query system, or may be provided by process or applicationproviders who are independent of the data intake and query system. Eachrespective ERP process may include an interface application installed ata computer of the external result provider that ensures propercommunication between the search support system and the external resultprovider. The ERP processes 1110, 1112 generate appropriate searchrequests in the protocol and syntax of the respective virtual indices1114, 1116, each of which corresponds to the search request received bythe search head 210. Upon receiving search results from theircorresponding virtual indices, the respective ERP process passes theresult to the search head 210, which may return or display the resultsor a processed set of results based on the returned results to therespective client device.

Client devices 1104 may communicate with the data intake and querysystem 108 through a network interface 1120, e.g., one or more LANs,WANs, cellular networks, intranetworks, and/or internetworks using anyof wired, wireless, terrestrial microwave, satellite links, etc., andmay include the public Internet.

The analytics platform utilizing the External Result Provider processdescribed in more detail in U.S. Pat. No. 8,738,629, entitled “EXTERNALRESULT PROVIDED PROCESS FOR RETRIEVING DATA STORED USING A DIFFERENTCONFIGURATION OR PROTOCOL”, issued on 27 May 2014, U.S. Pat. No.8,738,587, entitled “PROCESSING A SYSTEM SEARCH REQUEST BY RETRIEVINGRESULTS FROM BOTH A NATIVE INDEX AND A VIRTUAL INDEX”, issued on 25 Jul.2013, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/266,832, entitled “PROCESSINGA SYSTEM SEARCH REQUEST ACROSS DISPARATE DATA COLLECTION SYSTEMS”, filedon 1 May 2014, and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/449,144, entitled“PROCESSING A SYSTEM SEARCH REQUEST INCLUDING EXTERNAL DATA SOURCES”,filed on 31 Jul. 2014, each of which is hereby incorporated by referencein its entirety for all purposes.

2.14.1. ERP Process Features

The ERP processes described above may include two operation modes: astreaming mode and a reporting mode. The ERP processes can operate instreaming mode only, in reporting mode only, or in both modessimultaneously. Operating in both modes simultaneously is referred to asmixed mode operation. In a mixed mode operation, the ERP at some pointcan stop providing the search head with streaming results and onlyprovide reporting results thereafter, or the search head at some pointmay start ignoring streaming results it has been using and only usereporting results thereafter.

The streaming mode returns search results in real time, with minimalprocessing, in response to the search request. The reporting modeprovides results of a search request with processing of the searchresults prior to providing them to the requesting search head, which inturn provides results to the requesting client device. ERP operationwith such multiple modes provides greater performance flexibility withregard to report time, search latency, and resource utilization.

In a mixed mode operation, both streaming mode and reporting mode areoperating simultaneously. The streaming mode results (e.g., the raw dataobtained from the external data source) are provided to the search head,which can then process the results data (e.g., break the raw data intoevents, timestamp it, filter it, etc.) and integrate the results datawith the results data from other external data sources, and/or from datastores of the search head. The search head performs such processing andcan immediately start returning interim (streaming mode) results to theuser at the requesting client device; simultaneously, the search head iswaiting for the ERP process to process the data it is retrieving fromthe external data source as a result of the concurrently executingreporting mode.

In some instances, the ERP process initially operates in a mixed mode,such that the streaming mode operates to enable the ERP quickly toreturn interim results (e.g., some of the raw or unprocessed datanecessary to respond to a search request) to the search head, enablingthe search head to process the interim results and begin providing tothe client or search requester interim results that are responsive tothe query. Meanwhile, in this mixed mode, the ERP also operatesconcurrently in reporting mode, processing portions of raw data in amanner responsive to the search query. Upon determining that it hasresults from the reporting mode available to return to the search head,the ERP may halt processing in the mixed mode at that time (or somelater time) by stopping the return of data in streaming mode to thesearch head and switching to reporting mode only. The ERP at this pointstarts sending interim results in reporting mode to the search head,which in turn may then present this processed data responsive to thesearch request to the client or search requester. Typically the searchhead switches from using results from the ERP's streaming mode ofoperation to results from the ERP's reporting mode of operation when thehigher bandwidth results from the reporting mode outstrip the amount ofdata processed by the search head in the streaming mode of ERPoperation.

A reporting mode may have a higher bandwidth because the ERP does nothave to spend time transferring data to the search head for processingall the raw data. In addition, the ERP may optionally direct anotherprocessor to do the processing.

The streaming mode of operation does not need to be stopped to gain thehigher bandwidth benefits of a reporting mode; the search head couldsimply stop using the streaming mode results—and start using thereporting mode results—when the bandwidth of the reporting mode hascaught up with or exceeded the amount of bandwidth provided by thestreaming mode. Thus, a variety of triggers and ways to accomplish asearch head's switch from using streaming mode results to usingreporting mode results may be appreciated by one skilled in the art.

The reporting mode can involve the ERP process (or an external system)performing event breaking, time stamping, filtering of events to matchthe search query request, and calculating statistics on the results. Theuser can request particular types of data, such as if the search queryitself involves types of events, or the search request may ask forstatistics on data, such as on events that meet the search request. Ineither case, the search head understands the query language used in thereceived query request, which may be a proprietary language. Oneexemplary query language is Splunk Processing Language (SPL) developedby the assignee of the application, Splunk Inc. The search headtypically understands how to use that language to obtain data from theindexers, which store data in a format used by the SPLUNK® Enterprisesystem.

The ERP processes support the search head, as the search head is notordinarily configured to understand the format in which data is storedin external data sources such as Hadoop or SQL data systems. Rather, theERP process performs that translation from the query submitted in thesearch support system's native format (e.g., SPL if SPLUNK® ENTERPRISEis used as the search support system) to a search query request formatthat will be accepted by the corresponding external data system. Theexternal data system typically stores data in a different format fromthat of the search support system's native index format, and it utilizesa different query language (e.g., SQL or MapReduce, rather than SPL orthe like).

As noted, the ERP process can operate in the streaming mode alone. Afterthe ERP process has performed the translation of the query request andreceived raw results from the streaming mode, the search head canintegrate the returned data with any data obtained from local datasources (e.g., native to the search support system), other external datasources, and other ERP processes (if such operations were required tosatisfy the terms of the search query). An advantage of mixed modeoperation is that, in addition to streaming mode, the ERP process isalso executing concurrently in reporting mode. Thus, the ERP process(rather than the search head) is processing query results (e.g.,performing event breaking, timestamping, filtering, possibly calculatingstatistics if required to be responsive to the search query request,etc.). It should be apparent to those skilled in the art that additionaltime is needed for the ERP process to perform the processing in such aconfiguration. Therefore, the streaming mode will allow the search headto start returning interim results to the user at the client devicebefore the ERP process can complete sufficient processing to startreturning any search results. The switchover between streaming andreporting mode happens when the ERP process determines that theswitchover is appropriate, such as when the ERP process determines itcan begin returning meaningful results from its reporting mode.

The operation described above illustrates the source of operationallatency: streaming mode has low latency (immediate results) and usuallyhas relatively low bandwidth (fewer results can be returned per unit oftime). In contrast, the concurrently running reporting mode hasrelatively high latency (it has to perform a lot more processing beforereturning any results) and usually has relatively high bandwidth (moreresults can be processed per unit of time). For example, when the ERPprocess does begin returning report results, it returns more processedresults than in the streaming mode, because, e.g., statistics only needto be calculated to be responsive to the search request. That is, theERP process doesn't have to take time to first return raw data to thesearch head. As noted, the ERP process could be configured to operate instreaming mode alone and return just the raw data for the search head toprocess in a way that is responsive to the search request.Alternatively, the ERP process can be configured to operate in thereporting mode only. Also, the ERP process can be configured to operatein streaming mode and reporting mode concurrently, as described, withthe ERP process stopping the transmission of streaming results to thesearch head when the concurrently running reporting mode has caught upand started providing results. The reporting mode does not require theprocessing of all raw data that is responsive to the search queryrequest before the ERP process starts returning results; rather, thereporting mode usually performs processing of chunks of events andreturns the processing results to the search head for each chunk.

For example, an ERP process can be configured to merely return thecontents of a search result file verbatim, with little or no processingof results. That way, the search head performs all processing (such asparsing byte streams into events, filtering, etc.). The ERP process canbe configured to perform additional intelligence, such as analyzing thesearch request and handling all the computation that a native searchindexer process would otherwise perform. In this way, the configured ERPprocess provides greater flexibility in features while operatingaccording to desired preferences, such as response latency and resourcerequirements.

2.15. IT Service Monitoring

As previously mentioned, the SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE platform providesvarious schemas, dashboards and visualizations that make it easy fordevelopers to create applications to provide additional capabilities.One such application is SPLUNK® IT SERVICE INTELLIGENCE™, which performsmonitoring and alerting operations. It also includes analytics to helpan analyst diagnose the root cause of performance problems based onlarge volumes of data stored by the SPLUNK® ENTERPRISE system ascorrelated to the various services an IT organization provides (aservice-centric view). This differs significantly from conventional ITmonitoring systems that lack the infrastructure to effectively store andanalyze large volumes of service-related event data. Traditional servicemonitoring systems typically use fixed schemas to extract data frompre-defined fields at data ingestion time, wherein the extracted data istypically stored in a relational database. This data extraction processand associated reduction in data content that occurs at data ingestiontime inevitably hampers future investigations, when all of the originaldata may be needed to determine the root cause of or contributingfactors to a service issue.

In contrast, a SPLUNK® IT SERVICE INTELLIGENCE™ system stores largevolumes of minimally-processed service-related data at ingestion timefor later retrieval and analysis at search time, to perform regularmonitoring, or to investigate a service issue. To facilitate this dataretrieval process, SPLUNK® IT SERVICE INTELLIGENCE™ enables a user todefine an IT operations infrastructure from the perspective of theservices it provides. In this service-centric approach, a service suchas corporate e-mail may be defined in terms of the entities employed toprovide the service, such as host machines and network devices. Eachentity is defined to include information for identifying all of theevent data that pertains to the entity, whether produced by the entityitself or by another machine, and considering the many various ways theentity may be identified in raw machine data (such as by a URL, an IPaddress, or machine name). The service and entity definitions canorganize event data around a service so that all of the event datapertaining to that service can be easily identified. This capabilityprovides a foundation for the implementation of Key PerformanceIndicators.

One or more Key Performance Indicators (KPI's) are defined for a servicewithin the SPLUNK® IT SERVICE INTELLIGENCE™ application. Each KPImeasures an aspect of service performance at a point in time or over aperiod of time (aspect KPI's). Each KPI is defined by a search querythat derives a KPI value from the machine data of events associated withthe entities that provide the service. Information in the entitydefinitions may be used to identify the appropriate events at the time aKPI is defined or whenever a KPI value is being determined. The KPIvalues derived over time may be stored to build a valuable repository ofcurrent and historical performance information for the service, and therepository, itself, may be subject to search query processing. AggregateKPIs may be defined to provide a measure of service performancecalculated from a set of service aspect KPI values; this aggregate mayeven be taken across defined timeframes and/or across multiple services.A particular service may have an aggregate KPI derived fromsubstantially all of the aspect KPI's of the service to indicate anoverall health score for the service.

SPLUNK® IT SERVICE INTELLIGENCE™ facilitates the production ofmeaningful aggregate KPI's through a system of KPI thresholds and statevalues. Different KPI definitions may produce values in differentranges, and so the same value may mean something very different from oneKPI definition to another. To address this, SPLUNK® IT SERVICEINTELLIGENCE™ implements a translation of individual KPI values to acommon domain of “state” values. For example, a KPI range of values maybe 1-100, or 50-275, while values in the state domain may be ‘critical,’‘warning,’ ‘normal,’ and ‘informational’. Thresholds associated with aparticular KPI definition determine ranges of values for that KPI thatcorrespond to the various state values. In one case, KPI values 95-100may be set to correspond to ‘critical’ in the state domain. KPI valuesfrom disparate KPI's can be processed uniformly once they are translatedinto the common state values using the thresholds. For example, “normal80% of the time” can be applied across various KPI's. To providemeaningful aggregate KPI's, a weighting value can be assigned to eachKPI so that its influence on the calculated aggregate KPI value isincreased or decreased relative to the other KPI's.

One service in an IT environment often impacts, or is impacted by,another service. SPLUNK® IT SERVICE INTELLIGENCE™ can reflect thesedependencies. For example, a dependency relationship between a corporatee-mail service and a centralized authentication service can be reflectedby recording an association between their respective servicedefinitions. The recorded associations establish a service dependencytopology that informs the data or selection options presented in a GUI,for example. (The service dependency topology is like a “map” showinghow services are connected based on their dependencies.) The servicetopology may itself be depicted in a GUI and may be interactive to allownavigation among related services.

Entity definitions in SPLUNK® IT SERVICE INTELLIGENCE™ can includeinformational fields that can serve as metadata, implied data fields, orattributed data fields for the events identified by other aspects of theentity definition. Entity definitions in SPLUNK® IT SERVICEINTELLIGENCE™ can also be created and updated by an import of tabulardata (as represented in a CSV, another delimited file, or a search queryresult set). The import may be GUI-mediated or processed using importparameters from a GUI-based import definition process. Entitydefinitions in SPLUNK® IT SERVICE INTELLIGENCE™ can also be associatedwith a service by means of a service definition rule. Processing therule results in the matching entity definitions being associated withthe service definition. The rule can be processed at creation time, andthereafter on a scheduled or on-demand basis. This allows dynamic,rule-based updates to the service definition.

During operation, SPLUNK® IT SERVICE INTELLIGENCE™ can recognizeso-called “notable events” that may indicate a service performanceproblem or other situation of interest. These notable events can berecognized by a “correlation search” specifying trigger criteria for anotable event: every time KPI values satisfy the criteria, theapplication indicates a notable event. A severity level for the notableevent may also be specified. Furthermore, when trigger criteria aresatisfied, the correlation search may additionally or alternativelycause a service ticket to be created in an IT service management (ITSM)system, such as a systems available from ServiceNow, Inc., of SantaClara, Calif.

SPLUNK® IT SERVICE INTELLIGENCE™ provides various visualizations builton its service-centric organization of event data and the KPI valuesgenerated and collected. Visualizations can be particularly useful formonitoring or investigating service performance. SPLUNK® IT SERVICEINTELLIGENCE™ provides a service monitoring interface suitable as thehome page for ongoing IT service monitoring. The interface isappropriate for settings such as desktop use or for a wall-mounteddisplay in a network operations center (NOC). The interface mayprominently display a services health section with tiles for theaggregate KPI's indicating overall health for defined services and ageneral KPI section with tiles for KPI's related to individual serviceaspects. These tiles may display KPI information in a variety of ways,such as by being colored and ordered according to factors like the KPIstate value. They also can be interactive and navigate to visualizationsof more detailed KPI information.

SPLUNK® IT SERVICE INTELLIGENCE™ provides a service-monitoring dashboardvisualization based on a user-defined template. The template can includeuser-selectable widgets of varying types and styles to display KPIinformation. The content and the appearance of widgets can responddynamically to changing KPI information. The KPI widgets can appear inconjunction with a background image, user drawing objects, or othervisual elements, that depict the IT operations environment, for example.The KPI widgets or other GUI elements can be interactive so as toprovide navigation to visualizations of more detailed KPI information.

SPLUNK® IT SERVICE INTELLIGENCE™ provides a visualization showingdetailed time-series information for multiple KPI's in parallel graphlanes. The length of each lane can correspond to a uniform time range,while the width of each lane may be automatically adjusted to fit thedisplayed KPI data. Data within each lane may be displayed in a userselectable style, such as a line, area, or bar chart. During operation auser may select a position in the time range of the graph lanes toactivate lane inspection at that point in time. Lane inspection maydisplay an indicator for the selected time across the graph lanes anddisplay the KPI value associated with that point in time for each of thegraph lanes. The visualization may also provide navigation to aninterface for defining a correlation search, using information from thevisualization to pre-populate the definition.

SPLUNK® IT SERVICE INTELLIGENCE™ provides a visualization for incidentreview showing detailed information for notable events. The incidentreview visualization may also show summary information for the notableevents over a time frame, such as an indication of the number of notableevents at each of a number of severity levels. The severity leveldisplay may be presented as a rainbow chart with the warmest colorassociated with the highest severity classification. The incident reviewvisualization may also show summary information for the notable eventsover a time frame, such as the number of notable events occurring withinsegments of the time frame. The incident review visualization maydisplay a list of notable events within the time frame ordered by anynumber of factors, such as time or severity. The selection of aparticular notable event from the list may display detailed informationabout that notable event, including an identification of the correlationsearch that generated the notable event.

SPLUNK® IT SERVICE INTELLIGENCE™ provides pre-specified schemas forextracting relevant values from the different types of service-relatedevent data. It also enables a user to define such schemas.

3.0 EVENT CLUSTERING

As indicated above, in various implementations, underlying raw data ismaintained for events. This allows users and the system to continue toinvestigate and learn valuable insights about the raw data. For example,the raw data of different events may include latent similarities, whichcan facilitate additional understanding of the events. Thesesimilarities can be leveraged in various ways, such as to determine thatcertain events correspond to the same data type, share the same schema,or otherwise have similar structure. As additional examples, thesesimilarities can be leveraged to assist users in identifying fields inevent raw data, develop extraction rules for the fields, apply schema toevents, and validate any combination of the foregoing.

As described herein, events can be clustered, or arranged into groups,based on the similarity between any of the various data assigned to theevents, such as the raw data or other underlying data of the event. Inthis regard, events can be detected as similar, and thereby clusteredwhen data assigned to the events are similar.

Various approaches to clustering may be employed, such as those based oncluster analysis, similarity scoring, difference scoring, or the like.In some embodiments, statistical classification, including supervisedand unsupervised learning approaches, may be utilized. In unsupervisedlearning methods, any one of a number of cluster analysis techniques maybe employed alone or in combination, including connectivity-basedclustering, centroid-based clustering, distribution-based clustering,density-based clustering, canopy clustering, K-means clustering,subspace clustering, and correlation clustering, for example.

3.1 Event Clustering Based on Extraction Rules

In various implementations, the present disclosure provides for applyingextraction rules to the clustering of events. The extraction rules canbe used to extract information from event data, which can be factoredinto clustering algorithms, such as those based on any of the variousapproaches described above. For example, by applying one or moreextraction rules for a field to a set of events, portions of event datathat are latently similar (e.g., values in different eventscorresponding to the same field) can be identified to improve theclustering of the events.

For simplicity, the present application may only refer to a particularextraction rule in association with a field. However, it is noted that afield may be defined by one or more extraction rules and where theapplication refers to an extraction rule for a field in the singular, itshould be interpreted as potentially applying to multiple extractionrules (e.g., each extraction rule associated with the field).

In some embodiments, clustering based on an extraction rule(s) for afield includes applying the extraction rule to a set of events toidentify values for the field in the events. A clustering algorithm thatdetermines how to cluster events can base its notion of similaritybetween events on the identified values. To this end, the valuesidentified by the extraction rule can be used to determine thesimilarity between events such that similar events can be clusteredtogether. This could include increasing the similarity between eventsbased on the identified values so that events are more likely to beclustered into the same group. In some cases, this includes increasing asimilarity score for events based on the identified values. For example,the algorithm could increase a similarity score for an event based onthe event including values for the field corresponding to the extractionrule. However, as described in more detail below, some embodiments donot require a scoring system to base the similarity of events on theidentified values.

In some cases, values for a field are masked from event data, and theevents are clustered based on determining the similarity between themasked event data. Masked event data generally refers to event dataaltered based on values identified in the event data. Masking event datafor events can include, for example, deleting identified values for afield from the event data of each event. In addition, or instead,masking event data for events can include assigning a token toidentified values for a field from the event data of each event (e.g.,replacing the identified value with the token). To this effect, theclustering algorithm can consider identified values in different eventsas similar or more similar based on each value being assigned the token.For example, assigning a token to an identified value may cause thealgorithm to analyze the token in place of the particular value. Eachfield can be associated with at least one token (e.g., a different tokenfor each field) that is assigned to each identified value correspondingto the field. In one approach, the token for a field corresponds to thefield name for the field.

As mentioned above, some embodiments do not require a scoring system tobase the similarity on identified values from one or more extractionrules. Some of these embodiments may only consider events similar whereevent data analyzed for the events are identical amongst the events(optionally after some parsing, cleaning, and/or tokenization). Similarevents may be grouped together, such that each group represents uniqueevent data. In some embodiments, the event data analyzed for events canbe or comprise the masked event data described above. Masking differentvalues from event data of different events, for example can result inthose values being considered as identical. In this way, applying anextraction rule can result in the clustering algorithm identifyingadditional events as identical, or otherwise similar, even where theevents have different values for fields. An example of the forgoing willlater be described in additional detail with respect to FIGS. 18A-18G.

It should be appreciated that rather than grouping events together basedon identical event data, masked or otherwise, in some cases, similarityscores between events could be determined based on analyzing theidentified values for fields (e.g., based on determining similaritybetween tokens, or the values themselves), and events may be groupedbased on the similarity scores. The identified values can be factoredinto any of the various clustering approaches described herein includingthose that employ statistical classification.

3.2 Types of Extraction Rules Applied to Clustering

The extraction rules for fields applied to clustering can come from anycombination of a variety of possible sources. In some cases, one or moreof the extraction rules are machine-generated. For example, anextraction rule may be automatically generated by the system based on ananalysis of one or more events. For example, an extraction rule may begenerated by offering the user options for the extraction rule and theextraction rule may be automatically machine-generated based on theselected options. In addition or instead, the user may select the one ormore events and/or one or more portions of the underlying data thereoffor the system to base the extraction rule generation on. One or moreextraction rules can also be user generated. For example, a user maytype in or otherwise define an extraction rule. In some cases, one ormore extraction rules are partially machine-generated and partially usergenerated. For example, a user could modify a machine-generatedextraction rule and/or draft one or more portions thereof.

One or more of the extraction rules can correspond to a field definedprior to search time. These can include metadata fields of the events,such as “default fields” that may be associated with all events, asdescribed above. In some cases, these metadata fields are extracted atindex time by an indexer and may also include one more custom fields asdefined by a user. Examples of default metadata fields associated witheach event include a host, source, and source type field including or inaddition to a field storing the timestamp.

In addition or instead, one or more of the extraction rules cancorrespond to a field defined after index time of events, such as atsearch time. For example, the field may be defined in association with asearch interface, which may correspond to search screen 600 of FIG. 6A,or another interface. As an example, a user may provide an extractionrule that defines a field to a loaded search interface corresponding tosearch screen 600. The search screen can be updated to reflect the newlydefined field, such as by updating displayed events in the search screento display values for the field (e.g., in events list 608) and/orincluding the field in fields sidebar 606. In this case, the newlydefined field may be extracted from the events corresponding to thesearch query and values of the field may be displayed in associationwith the events.

It should be noted that aspects of the present disclosure extend beyondsystems that perform searches on indexed events and more generally canapply to systems that define extraction rules for events at any time,regardless of whether the system performs indexing or employs a searchinterface. Further, the extraction rules can more generally be appliedto the underlying data of events, which is not necessarily raw data.

In various implementations, regardless of when an extraction rule(s) hasbeen generated, and regardless of whether the extraction rule has beenassigned to a field, events can be clustered based on the extractionrule. Further, in some cases, at least some of the events can bereclustered or clusters can be updated based on the extraction rule.Thus, as new extraction rules are generated in association with events,a set of clusters corresponding to those events can also be updated toreflect any insights that may be provided by the new extraction rules.

3.3 Interactive Field Generator

In some respects, the present application provides for clustering eventsbased on extraction rules in order to assist a user in definingextraction rules for event fields. In particular, the relationshipsbetween events that are represented by clusters can be exposed to usersto aid in the users understanding and interpreting the events.

In some embodiments, this is manifested by displaying one or moreclusters of a set of clusters to the user in association with a set ofevents. An extraction rule can be generated in association with thedisplayed events. In response to the extraction rule being generated, anew set of clusters is determined based on the extraction rule, and oneor more clusters of the new set of clusters is displayed to the user. Inthis way, the system can indicate to the user the impact of theextraction rule on underlying relationships between events. Based on thedisplayed clusters from the new set, the user can choose to modify theextraction rule, assign the extraction rule to a field, and/or generateat least one additional extraction rule for the field or another field.

In some embodiments, the extraction rules (and optionally fields) areiteratively generated using this approach, and each time events areclustered, any newly generated extraction rules can be added to theextraction rules applied to the clustering. Each additional extractionrule may in some cases increase the similarity between events in theclustering algorithm, such that the number of clusters might be reduced.

FIGS. 18A-18G illustrate one approach to interactive field generation,in accordance with implementations of the present disclosure. Below,additional aspects of the present disclosure are described with respectto field generation interface 1800. However, field generation interfaceis used for illustrative purposes and many of the features of fieldgeneration interface 1800 can vary such as presentation formats fordata, workflow, and the like. FIGS. 18A-18G are in temporal order,however, other intermediate screens could be employed.

Field generation interface 1800 allows a user to interactively definenew event fields by generating extraction rules and assigning theextraction rules to fields. As indicated above, the field generationinterface may optionally be launched from a search interface, such asone corresponding to search screen 600, or another suitable searchinterface. It is noted that field generation interface 1800 could beimplemented at or prior to search time for events and could be employedoutside of the context of search systems. In some cases, a searchinterface (e.g., corresponding to search screen 600) displays aselectable option, which when selected by the user, causes fieldgeneration interface 1800 to be launched, which can optionally result indisplay of source selection form 1802 shown in FIG. 18A.

By way of example, source selection form 1802 allows the user to selectone or more source types. A user may type a source type into sourceselection form 1802 to select a source type and/or select one or moresource types from a menu, as shown. For the present example, assume theuser selects source type 1804 labeled “alcatel.” In someimplementations, the selected source type(s) define the events utilizedby field generation interface 1800 to assist the user in generatingextraction rules. In particular, field generation interface 1800 candisplay events corresponding to the selected source type and/or baseextraction rule generation on the underlying data of the events, such asfor machine-generated extraction rules. In other cases, one or moresource types may be automatically selected, such as based oncorresponding to a search query in the search interface and/or one ormore events returned by the search query. In FIG. 6A, as one example,the source type could correspond to the selected field indicated infields sidebar 606.

In the present example, based on the selection of a source type, such assource type 1804, the system causes display of one or more eventscorresponding to the source type, as shown in FIG. 18B. For example, theevents may be displayed based on having a source type field that matchesor otherwise corresponds to the selected source type. Optionally, thesystem clusters the events, and the events and one or more of theclusters are presented to the user, as shown in FIG. 18B. In this case,the system has identified forty-eight clusters from one-thousand eventscorresponding to the selected source type. A subset of the clusters(eight clusters) is shown and optionally additional clusters could beexposed via user interaction with field generation interface 1800 (e.g.,via scrolling in response to user input). This subset includes clusters1806A, 1806B, 1806C, 1806D, 1806E, 1806F, 1806G, and 1806H (referred tocollectively as clusters 1806), which are each visually indicated in thefigure by a corresponding event. In the present example, clusters 1806are presented in a manner that visually distinguishes the clusters. Eachcluster corresponds to a respective row. Further, an event from thecluster is presented in association with the cluster (e.g., theunderlying data of the event). Although a single event from each clusteris displayed, in other cases multiple events could be displayed inassociation with each cluster. Further, more events from a cluster couldbe exposed based on a user selection corresponding to the cluster.

In the present example, the set of clusters for FIG. 18B is based onfields assigned to the events (e.g., prior to launching field generationinterface 1800). In this case, the events have been clustered based onat least one default field assigned to the events. In particular, theevents have been clustered based on a field(s) corresponding to the timestamp (e.g., using one or more extraction rules corresponding to thetime stamp) of the event. The system has identified values in the eventscorresponding to the time stamp, has masked out the identified values,and has clustered the events using the masked event data. As a specificexample, for FIG. 18B, the masked out portion of each event comprisingthe time stamp can be “<<TIME>><<NUM>><<NUM>><<NUM>><<NUM>>,” where thefive values of the time stamp have been tokenized. Thus, for clustering,the masked event data for the event corresponding to cluster 1806A shownin FIG. 18B could be “<<TIME>><<NUM>><<NUM>><<NUM>><<NUM>>% LINK-I-Up:e13” and the masked event data for the event corresponding to cluster1806G shown in FIG. 18B could be “<<TIME>><<NUM>><<NUM>><<NUM>><<NUM>>%LINK-I-Up: e14.”

The clustering algorithm used in the present example groups events byidentical matches between event data, as described above. Thus, usingmasked event data, events with different time stamp values can beidentified as corresponding to the same cluster. The unmasked portion ofthe event data can be used to define the clusters. Thus, in this case,each event of a particular cluster includes the same unmasked portion ofevent data, but might include a different time stamp. As noted above, inother approaches a similarity score could be determined using maskedevent data in order to group events.

As noted above, this is but one suitable approach to clustering theevents. It is further noted that the events need not be initiallyclustered based on a field(s) in FIG. 18B. More generally, one or moreof the events corresponding to the selected source type (or otherwiseselected to use for extraction rule generation) could be presented tothe user. Also, other fields could be considered, such as based on beinga selected field in search screen 600. By selecting GUI control element1814, the user can cause display of FIG. 18C.

In FIG. 18B, the user can select one or more portions of event data fromone or more events. As shown, the user has selected portion 1810. Theselection portion is visually indicated using text highlighting. Basedon the user selection of the event data, the system optionally causesfield selection form 1812 to be displayed to the user. The user canenter a field name for a field corresponding to the selected portion(s)of event data.

The selected portion(s) of event data correspond to a sample value(s)for at least one extraction rule. In response to the user providing thesample value(s), the system generates one or more extraction rulescorresponding to the sample value(s). For example, the system cangenerate one or more extraction rules capable of extracting the samplevalue(s) from the corresponding event data. This can be based on theposition of a sample value in event data, the formatting of a samplevalue, one or more characters in the sample value and/or other factorsthat can be defined in an extraction rule, such as a regex. Any suitableapproach to machine-generating extraction rules based on sample valuescan be employed.

FIG. 18C displays events along with sample values identified in eachevent using the machine-generated extraction rule(s) for the field named“type.” The identified values for each event are visually indicated byhighlighting text in event data corresponding to the values. Byselecting GUI control element 1816, the user can accept themachine-generated rule for the field and cause display of FIG. 18D.

The example shown in FIG. 18C corresponds to an extraction ruleadjustment interface, which allows the user to modify themachine-generated extraction rule. Examples of such interfaces have beendescribed above. In this case, the extraction rule adjustment interfacepresents a plurality of selectable options for the extraction rule. Eachoption is selectable to cause the extraction rule to be replaced with amodified version corresponding to the selection option. Further, thedisplayed field value indicators (e.g., highlighting) can be updated tocorrespond to the selected option(s). When the user is satisfied withthe current extraction rule, GUI control element 1816 can be selected toapply the extraction rule to the field.

As shown, one or more default options may be selected that correspond tothe machine-generated extraction rule(s). In some implementations, thesystem generates the plurality of options for the extraction rule basedon the sample value(s), selects one or more of the options as defaultoptions, and generates the initial machine-generated extraction rulehaving the selected default options. The selection of the options can bebased on analyzing each option, such as by scoring and ranking optionsand/or combinations thereof based on field values extractable using theselection option. For example, the system may determine the defaultoption(s) based on determining the similarity of values extracted usinga corresponding extraction rule to the sample value(s) provided by theuser. Other factors could include the number of values extractable froma set of events using the option(s).

In the example shown, the system generates options for a plurality ofcategories (e.g., categories 1820, 1822, and 1824). Further, the systemautomatically selects an option from each category for the initialextraction rule. As indicated above, the selection can be based onranking the individual options, and/or combinations thereof (e.g.,combinations of one option from each category). By way of example,category 1820 is a “start after” category, with options that define thestart after position for the extraction rule (e.g., a regex). Theseoptions can define a start position for extracting a value in eventdata. Category 1822 is an “Extract” category, with options that definecontent (e.g., characters characters) to extract for the extraction rule(e.g., a regex). Category 1824 is an “End at and not include” category,with options that define the end at position for the extraction rule.These options can define an end position for extracting a value in eventdata. The options may also specify one or more characters that will notbe included in the value, but may define the end position.

As indicated above, the user may select an option from each category ofthe extraction rule. In addition, or instead, the user may define one ormore custom options for the extraction rule. For example, each categoryincludes a custom option, such as custom option 1826, which the user canuse to define a corresponding option for that category (e.g., byselecting a corresponding GUI control element). This could include theuser providing one or more characters to define the option. In somecases, a custom option allows the user to type in or otherwise provideregex code or one or more portions thereof for the extraction rule. Insome cases, an option comprises a predefined common value pattern toinclude in the exation rule. As an example, a common value pattern couldcorrespond to an IP address format, a credit card # format, a macaddress format, or a fully-qualified hostname. An example of a commonvalue pattern for an IP address format is(\d{1-3}\.\d{1-3}\.\d{1-3}\.\d{1-3}), which defines the format of IPaddresses.

The extraction rule adjustment interface described above is only onesuitable example that may be employed. Also, the extraction ruleadjustment interface may include one or more screens and/or windows,although a single screen is shown. In some implementations, anextraction rule adjustment interface is not employed. For example, amachine-generated extraction rule could automatically be generated basedon one or more sample values and/or events provided by the user, andapplied to clustering. In these cases, the system may, for example,transition to the display of FIG. 18D from FIG. 18B without entering anextraction rule adjustment interface, such as that shown in FIG. 18C.

In response to the new extraction rule, the system can cluster eventsbased on the extraction rule, as indicated in FIG. 18D. In the presentexample, this clustering is in response to the user accepting the newextraction rule, which can correspond to the user assigning theextraction rule to a field. This may be responsive to selection of GUIcontrol element 1816 in FIG. 18C. FIG. 18D is similar to FIG. 18B, butthe screen has been updated based on the new extraction rule(s).

Events can be clustered by adding the new extraction rule(s) to a setcomprising any extraction rules that may have been used for a previousclustering of events (e.g., corresponding to FIG. 18B). Further, theclustering algorithm may optionally be the same clustering algorithmutilized for previous clustering. In the present example, the events arereclustered by updating the masked event data to correspond to the newset of extraction rules. This can include tokenizing field valuescorresponding to the new extraction rule(s) and/or fields. In theexample provided for clusters 1806A and 1806G, the updated masked eventdata could be “<<TIME>><<NUM>><<NUM>><<NUM>><<NUM>>%<type>: e13” and“<<TIME>><<NUM>><<NUM>><<NUM>><<NUM>>%<type>: e14” respectively. Asindicated in FIG. 18D, using this approach, the number of clusters ofthe events has been reduced to 32, as some clusters have been merged. Itis noted that the set of extraction rules used for clustering could alsobe updated based on the user deleting or modifying an extraction ruleand/or field from the set in addition to or instead of adding anextraction rule and/or field to the set.

FIG. 18E shows an optional visualization of the reclustering of events,in accordance with some implementations of the present disclosure. Insome cases, the user may access the visualization from field generationinterface 1800, and the visualization can be updated each time eventsare reclustered. In the present example, selecting GUI control element1834 causes visualization 1840 to be displayed to the user.

Visualization 1840 visually indicates relationships between clusters ofthe events from different sets of clusters. The relationships show aprogression of the sets of clusters exposed to the user in fieldgeneration interface 1800 (e.g., each set can correspond to a userassigned field and/or extraction rule). In FIG. 18E, the progression isfrom the set of clusters corresponding to FIG. 18B to the set ofclusters corresponding to FIG. 18D. As shown, visualization 1840indicates that cluster 1842A corresponds to clusters 1806A merged orcombined with cluster 18061. In other words, the events of cluster 1842Acomprise the events of each of clusters 1806A and 1806I. Visualization1840 also indicates that cluster 1842B directly corresponds to cluster1806B, and cluster 1842C directly corresponds to cluster 1806C. In otherwords, each event is identical amongst those corresponding clusters orgroups. Visualization 1840 also displays event data for each cluster.For the initial set of clusters, the unmasked portion of event data isshown. For the subsequent set of clusters, the unmasked portion of eventdata is shown, along with at least one token of the masked event data.The token corresponds to the extraction rule(s) added between sets ofclusters, thereby indicating the impact of the extraction rule on theclustering.

Returning to FIG. 18D, field generation interface 1800 indicates fieldsand assigned extraction rules generated using field generation interface1800. In particular GUI display region 1830 comprises a list ofgenerated fields. Based on the extraction rule being assigned to thefield, the field is added to the displayed fields as shown. Inparticular, entry 1832 corresponds to the field generated for the fieldnamed “type.” The entry is selectable to delete the field or edit thefield. Any number of fields may be shown in GUI display region 1830. Inthe present example, the fields are selectable and selecting a fieldcauses field values corresponding to the selected fields to be indicatedin field generation interface 1800. For example, FIG. 18D shows entry1832 in a selected state. Deselecting a field and cause field valueindicators to be removed from display.

Also shown in FIG. 18D, a user can select sample text values and/orevents associated with the clusters similar to what is shown in FIG.18B. In the example shown, the user has selected portion 1850 of eventdata causing field selection form 1852 to be displayed. Field selectionform 1852 can be similar to field selection form 1812 of FIG. 18B.However, field selection form 1852 presents the user with selectable“add to existing field” option 1854 to assign the extraction rule to anexisting field, such as the field named “type,” such that the extractionrule generated based on the sample data from the user is assigned to theexisting field (e.g., one field may have multiple extraction rules). Asanother example, adding to an existing field could cause an updated tothe original extraction rule corresponding to the field. In this case,an additional extraction rule may not be added to the field, butadditional values may be extracted by the updated extraction rule.

In the present example, assume the user opts to define a new field named“ecode,” as shown. A similar extraction rule adjustment interface (notshown) as described with respect to FIG. 18C may be presented based onthe selected sample data. As shown in FIG. 18F, the newly generatedextraction rule for the field has been generated and assigned to thefield causing field entry 1856 to be added to GUI display region 1830(e.g., a GUI panel). Field entry 1856 is active, causing valuescorresponding to the field to be identified in event data, as shown. Inthis case, the values are identified by highlighting their correspondingtext in the displayed event data.

Text corresponding to values of inactive or unselected fields is alsooptionally displayed in a different manner than for active fields. Forexample, that text may be greyed out, or in some cases not displayed inthe event data. Whether text is greyed out, not displayed, or otherwisevisually distinguished can be based on the text corresponding to valuesof fields, regardless of whether the field is active or inactive infield generation interface 1800. For example, each portion of textcorresponding to a field may be greyed out or removed from the eventdata, or otherwise displayed in a manner that allows the user todistinguish between text that has a corresponding field and text thatdoes not. In this way, the users can visually identify which text inevent data has yet to be captured by an extraction rule and/or field. Asa specific example, for the event corresponding to cluster 1860A, theuser may only see “%: e” because that text does not have a correspondingfield or extraction rule (e.g., a corresponding field or extraction ruleused to form the set of clusters being presented to the user). Asanother option, the undisplayed text may instead by greyed out orotherwise distinguished from the other text.

As indicated in FIG. 18F, the original events have been narrowed down totwo clusters, clusters 1860A and 1860B. FIG. 18G shows visualization1864, which is similar to visualization 1840, and therefore is notdescribed in significant detail. As indicated using checkboxes, the usercan selectably remove one or more fields from visualization 1840,causing the visualization to be updated accordingly.

It is noted, in the present example, the user can exit field generationinterface 1800 at any stage of field generation, such as by selectingGUI control element 1866, or the user can continue to generateextraction rules for fields. This can be one approach to saving thegenerated fields, or the fields can be saved as they are generated.

In various implementations, the extraction rules can be utilized by afield extractor described above. As an example, the generated fieldscould be applied to the search interface optionally used to enter thefield generation interface. For example, the generated fields can beautomatically added to fields sidebar 606 as selected and/or interestingfields. Thus, the generated fields can be added to the fields utilizedby the search interface corresponding to search screen 600. Further, theuser may optionally re-enter field generation interface 1800 from thesearch interface in order to redefine fields and/or generate additionalfields.

In addition, or instead, the generated extraction rules can be appliedto new events. For example, the generated extraction rules could besaved in associated with the selected source type(s) and applied todifferent events corresponding to the source type. This can be used, forexample, to associate a pre-defined late-binding schemas to particularsource types. Thus, the generated fields and associated extraction rulescan be used to extract values for the fields from events, and theextracted values may be presented to the user in an graphical interface,such as a graphical interface corresponding to search screen 600.

As indicated above, the workflow illustrated using field generationinterface 1800 can vary widely from what has been shown, using anynumber of screens and any number of display formats. For example, a setof clusters, and an updated set of clusters may be presented to a useron any number of screens, such as a single screen. Further, the approachof presenting clusters by selecting events for display based on theircorresponding cluster, and updating the displayed events when theclusters are updated can change. More generally, presentation of a setof clusters as used herein refers to any information presented based onthe set of clusters. For example, a cluster may be presented byhighlighting one or more portions of event data based on the cluster.

It is also noted, events displayed to the user in association withextraction rule generation could be static or otherwise independent froma set of clusters, and when a new set of clusters is generated, thehighlighting or other visual indicators could be updated to reflect theupdated clusters. Further, in some cases, the field generation interfaceis completely or partially integrated into one or more search screens ofa search interface, such as the search interface corresponding to searchscreen 600, or another search interface that causes events to bepresented to users. For example, the user may select sample data, suchas sample values from an events list, such as events list 608. Further,any combination of the various visual indicators applied to event datamay be applied to the events in the events list. In particular, anycombination of the user features and portions thereof described withrespect to field generation interface 1800 may be integrated into searchscreen 600, or another search screen, such as the entries of generatedfields, the extraction rule adjustment interface, and the like.

3.4 Additional Implementations

FIG. 19 presents a flowchart illustrating a method in accordance withthe disclosed embodiments. Each block illustrating methods in accordancewith FIG. 19, and other methods described herein, comprises a computingprocess that may be performed using any combination of hardware,firmware, and/or software. For instance, various functions may becarried out by a processor executing instructions stored in memory. Themethods may also be embodied as computer-usable instructions stored oncomputer storage media. The methods may be provided by a standaloneapplication, a service or hosted service (standalone or in combinationwith another hosted service), or a plug-in to another product, to name afew.

At block 1902, a first cluster is presented from a first set ofclusters. For example, the system can cause presentation of cluster1806A in association with an event of cluster 1806A, as shown in FIG.18B. The first cluster is from a first set of clusters of events, eachevent comprising a time stamp and event data.

At block 1904, an extraction rule is received from a user. For example,based on the presentation of cluster 1806A, the system can receive froma user extraction rule 1870 corresponding to the event of cluster 1806A.This can optionally involve an extraction rule adjustment interface,such as is described with respect to FIG. 18C.

At block 1906, similarities are determined in event data based on theextraction rule. For example, the system can determine similarities inthe event data between the events based on the received extraction rule.This can include masking event data based on the extraction rule, andcomparing the masked event data, applying the extraction rule to theevent data to identify values for a field, and/or otherwise factoring inone or more extraction rules into a similarity metric for clustering,examples of which have been described above.

At block 1908, events are grouped into a second set of clusters based onthe determined similarities. For example, the system can group theevents into a second set of clusters based on the determinedsimilarities.

At block 1910, a second cluster from the second set of clusters inpresented. For example, the system can cause presentation of cluster1842A in association with an event of cluster 1842A, where the secondcluster is from the second set of clusters, as shown in FIG. 18D.

FIG. 20 presents a flowchart illustrating a method in accordance withthe disclosed embodiments. At block 2002, events are clustered based ona set of extraction rules associated with a set of fields. As usedherein, a set of extraction rules can include one or more extractionrules and a set of fields can include one or more fields. As an example,the system can cluster events corresponding to source type 1804 based ona set of extraction rules corresponding to at least one metadata fieldof the events. The clusters can include clusters 1806 presented in FIG.18B.

At block 2004, clusters are presented in association with correspondingevents. For example, as shown in FIG. 18B, the system can causepresentation of clusters 1806 in association with corresponding eventsfrom the clusters. As noted above, every cluster may be presented oronly a subset of the clusters may be presented. In some cases, thepresentation of each cluster may be viewable in a screen, but notnecessarily concurrently (e.g., they may be viewable via a GUI elementlike a scroll bar).

At block 2006, an extraction rule is added for a field to the set ofextraction rules. For example, extraction rule 1870 can be added to theset of extraction rules by the user for the field named “type.” Method2000 can optionally be repeated any number of times, as indicated inFIG. 20. FIGS. 18D through 18F can correspond to another iteration ofmethod 2000, in which the events are clustered based on both the atleast one metadata field and extraction rule 1870. Further, theextraction rule corresponding to the field named “ecode” may be added tothe set of extraction rules.

From the foregoing, it will be seen that this invention is one welladapted to attain all the ends and objects set forth above, togetherwith other advantages which are obvious and inherent to the system andmethod. It will be understood that certain features and subcombinationsare of utility and may be employed without reference to other featuresand subcombinations. This is contemplated by and is within the scope ofthe claims.

The invention claimed is:
 1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:causing display of a first cluster from a first set of clusters ofevents, each event comprising a time stamp and a portion of raw machinedata, wherein the raw machine data is produced by one or more componentswithin an information technology environment and reflects activitywithin the information technology environment; receiving a userselection of a sample value for a field in a first event in thedisplayed first cluster; generating an extraction rule for the fieldbased on the sample value and the user selection of the sample value;applying the generated extraction rule to the events; determiningsimilarities between the events, the determining excluding valuesidentified from the events by the applying of the extraction rule;grouping the events into a second set of clusters, each cluster in thesecond set of clusters being based on the determined similaritiesbetween the events; and causing presentation of a second cluster fromthe second set of clusters.
 2. The computer-implemented method of claim1, wherein the determining of the similarities comprises masking textcorresponding to the values from the events, wherein the determining ofthe similarities is from the masked events.
 3. The computer-implementedmethod of claim 1, wherein the determining of the similarities comprisestokenizing text portions of the events that correspond to the values,wherein the determining of the similarities is from the tokenized textportions.
 4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein thepresentation of the second cluster is based on a user assignment of theextraction rule to the field.
 5. The computer-implemented method ofclaim 1, further comprising grouping the events into the first set ofclusters based on previously-determined similarities between the events.6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:grouping the events into the first set of clusters based on a set of oneor more extraction rules; and adding the identified extraction rule tothe set of one or more extraction rules, wherein the determining of thesimilarities is based on each extraction rule in the set of one or moreextraction rules.
 7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, whereinthe generating of the extraction rule comprises machine-generating atleast a portion of the extraction rule based on the sample value,wherein the user selection identifies the sample value in the firstevent.
 8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein thegenerating of the extraction rule comprises: machine-generating theextraction rule based on the user selection, wherein the user selectionidentifies the sample value for the first event; causing presentation ofa set of values extracted from one or more of the events using themachine-generated extraction rule; and applying user adjustments to themachine-generated extraction rule in association with the presented setof values.
 9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, furthercomprising applying a late-binding schema to the events using theextraction rule.
 10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, whereinthe display of the first cluster comprises displaying a plurality ofclusters from the first set of clusters, each cluster being displayed inassociation with at least one event of the cluster.
 11. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the presentation of thesecond cluster identifies a set of values identified in the events usingthe extraction rule.
 12. The computer-implemented method of claim 1,further comprising: generating an additional extraction rule for anadditional field based on an additional sample value and an additionaluser selection of the additional sample value; applying the generatedadditional extraction rule and the extraction rule to the events;determining additional similarities between the events, the determiningexcluding additional values identified from the events by the applyingof the generated additional extraction rule and the extraction rule; andgrouping the events into a third set of clusters, each cluster in thethird set of clusters being based on the determined additionalsimilarities between the events; and causing presentation of a thirdcluster from the third set of clusters.
 13. The computer-implementedmethod of claim 1, further comprising: generating an additionalextraction rule for an additional field based on an additional samplevalue and an additional user selection of the additional sample value;and based on the generating of the additional extraction rule, causingpresentation of at least one of the events, wherein the presentationidentifies at least one value in each of the at least one of the eventsfor each of the extraction rule and the additional extraction rule. 14.The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the presentation ofthe second cluster identifies a portion of text in a second event fromthe second cluster as corresponding to the extraction rule.
 15. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: saving theextraction rule in association with the field; receiving, in a searchinterface, a search query; based on the receiving of the search query,extracting a set of values of the field from a set of eventscorresponding to the search query using the saved extraction rule; andcausing display of the extracted set of values in association with theset of events in the search interface.
 16. The computer-implementedmethod of claim 1, further comprising grouping the events into the firstset of clusters based on previously-determined similarities of theevents, the previously-determined similarities determined based on ametadata field assigned to the events by an indexer.
 17. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: identifyingthe events based on determining each event corresponds to at least oneuser-selected source type; saving the extraction rule in associationwith the at least one user-selected source type; and applying the savedextraction rule to a set of events based on identifying the set ofevents correspond to the at least one user-selected source type.
 18. Asystem comprising: one or more processors; and computer memory havinginstructions stored thereon, the instructions, when executed by the oneor more processors causing the system to perform a method comprising:causing display of a first cluster from a first set of clusters ofevents, each event comprising a time stamp and a portion of raw machinedata, wherein the raw machine data is produced by one or more componentswithin an information technology environment and reflects activitywithin the information technology environment; receiving a userselection of a sample value for a field in a first event in thedisplayed first cluster; generating an extraction rule for the fieldbased on the sample value and the user selection of the sample value;applying the generated extraction rule to the events; determiningsimilarities between the events, the determining excluding valuesidentified from the events by the applying of the extraction rule;grouping the events into a second set of clusters, each cluster in thesecond set of clusters being based on the determined similaritiesbetween the events; and causing presentation of a second cluster fromthe second set of clusters.
 19. The system of claim 18, wherein thedetermining of the similarities comprises masking text corresponding tothe values from the events, wherein the determining of the similaritiesis from the masked events.
 20. The system of claim 18, wherein thedetermining of the similarities comprises tokenizing text portions ofthe events that correspond to the values, wherein the determining of thesimilarities is from the tokenized text portions.
 21. The system ofclaim 18, wherein the presentation of the second cluster is based on auser assignment of the extraction rule to the field.
 22. The system ofclaim 18, wherein the method further comprises grouping the events intothe first set of clusters based on previously-determined similaritiesbetween the events.
 23. The system of claim 18, wherein the methodfurther comprises: grouping the events into the first set of clustersbased on a set of one or more extraction rules; and adding theidentified extraction rule to the set of one or more extraction rules,wherein the determining of the similarities is based on each extractionrule in the set of one or more extraction rules.
 24. The system of claim18, wherein the generating of the extraction rule comprisesmachine-generating at least a portion of the extraction rule based onthe sample value, wherein the user selection identifies the sample valuein the first event.
 25. One or more computer-readable media havinginstructions stored thereon, the instructions, when executed by aprocessor of a computing device, to cause the computing device toperform a method comprising: causing display of a first cluster from afirst set of clusters of events, each event comprising a time stamp anda portion of raw machine data, wherein the raw machine data is producedby one or more components within an information technology environmentand reflects activity within the information technology environment;receiving a user selection of a sample value for a field in a firstevent in the displayed first cluster; generating an extraction rule forthe field based on the sample value and the user selection of the samplevalue; applying the generated extraction rule to the events; determiningsimilarities between the events, the determining excluding valuesidentified from the events by the applying of the extraction rule;grouping the events into a second set of clusters, each cluster in thesecond set of clusters being based on the determined similaritiesbetween the events; and causing presentation of a second cluster fromthe second set of clusters.
 26. The one or more computer-readable mediaof claim 25, wherein the determining of the similarities comprisesmasking text corresponding to the values from the events, wherein thedetermining of the similarities is from the masked events.
 27. The oneor more computer-readable media of claim 25, wherein the determining ofthe similarities comprises tokenizing text portions of the events thatcorrespond to the values, wherein the determining of the similarities isfrom the tokenized text portions.
 28. The one or more computer-readablemedia of claim 25, wherein the presentation of the second cluster isbased on a user assignment of the extraction rule to the field.
 29. Theone or more computer-readable media of claim 25, wherein the methodfurther comprises grouping the events into the first set of clustersbased on previously-determined similarities between the events.
 30. Theone or more computer-readable media of claim 25, wherein the methodfurther comprises: grouping the events into the first set of clustersbased on a set of one or more extraction rules; and adding theidentified extraction rule to the set of one or more extraction rules,wherein the determining of the similarities is based on each extractionrule in the set of one or more extraction rules.